


Resident Evil Exodus: The Tale of Elza Walker (Part 3)

by RMandel



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RMandel/pseuds/RMandel
Summary: Among the many stories that have come to us from the events surrounding the Raccoon City T-virus Outbreak of late September, 1998, is the tale of one particular and remarkable woman.  She is a person who by all rights should be as familiar and as famous as many of the more storied characters, both male and female, and both good and bad, who emerged from that horrible catastrophe.  The reasons for that are many, and will not be dealt with here.  Nevertheless, her adventure is no less dramatic, no less involved, and no less inspiring, than those of her fellow survivors from that disaster.  She suffered more than most, endured more horror that most, and almost paid the ultimate price for daring to challenge that calamity ... yet in the end, she survived.  She not only emerged from that hell on earth but went on to become one of the biggest names behind the scenes in the modern struggle against global bioterrorism.  Even today, even though she is no longer the action-oriented and adventuresome young woman she was back then, she plays her part and carries her share of the burden with just as much drive and determination as her more famous counterparts.That woman is Dr. Elizabeth Ann "Elza" Walker.  THIS is her story.





	Resident Evil Exodus: The Tale of Elza Walker (Part 3)

RESIDENT EVIL: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker  
by Richard Mandel

 

based on characters and concepts created by Capcom®, Ltd.  
ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3) edition  
(based on the v4.10 text)

 

1996 original scenario by Hideki Kamiya and Isao Oishi  
2008 revised scenario by Fumio Yamaguchi  
2014-15 reversioning by Richard Mandel

 

Exodus concept, selected characters and events, and this manuscript copyright © 2015 Richard Mandel. All other Resident Evil©® materials are the intellectual property of Capcom®, Ltd.

Use of Capcom's materials in this work of fiction is meant solely for the entertainment purposes of my fellow Resident Evil©® fans, and is not meant to be infringing in any way, express or implied, or in any form, shape, or fashion.

Please be advised that it is Capcom, not I, who holds the ultimate right with regards to all things produced under the Resident Evil©® title, and as such it is they who have the final say with regards to the availability, use, duplication, or distribution of this work.

Any relationship to any person or persons - living, dead, or undead - is solely coincidental.

\--------------------

STAGE THREE - THE FACTORY

Chapter 16 - Recce

The survivors emerged into a small area that was fenced on all sides. Directly behind and some distance in front of them were large metal double gates, with a door serving the same function as a medieval-type postern gate inset into one of the sides of each pair of gates. Towering to their right was a massive warehouse at least two stories high. To their left and forward was another large warehouse just as high, and apparently twice as long, that ran well past the fence. Immediately to its right and almost directly in front of them, across from what looked like an alley of some kind, was what appeared to be an office or administration building. An overhead catwalk connected the upper part of the office building's longest section to the upper part of the large building to their left, with doors set at either end for access between the two buildings. Parked in front of the long part of the office building, the one that was almost end-on to them, were two commercial trailers of the internodal container type. One was painted rust-red and the other a dirty shade of blue. There appeared to be a parking lot or some large area off to their right past the fence, between the warehouse and the back end of the office building, but the high fence hid it from view. Only the break in the surrounding buildings, utility poles, and overhead power and phone lines betrayed the presence of such an open space nestled among the buildings.

What caught their attention right away, however, were the bodies – or rather, what was left of them. There were the bones of at least six people scattered around their little Factory entry area, as they were already beginning to think of it, and most of them had been stripped clean. Most bore dried blood, and there was the occasional remaining pieces of flesh, muscles, ligaments, and so on to be found mostly at the joint ends. Many of the bones had been broken or snapped in two. They were scattered unevenly around, and they could even see some poking out of the ruins of the half-crushed RPD patrol car and the wrecked tractor-trailer rig sitting on top of it to their immediate right. It had plowed through the street fence for most of its length to reach that parked patrol car but hadn't quite made it, and the ruin of its trailer plugged what would have otherwise been a rather gaping hole in the street fence. The front windshield of the truck was smashed and the driver's side door hung open. There was no body inside. Only bones remained, and what were left of those were scattered below on the pavement. All of them had seen enough revolting sights by now to steel them against such, even little Sherry – yet all of them still found this particular scene unnerving.

"It's like walking into a slaughterhouse," Rita said. Pistol held loosely yet ready to use at a moment's notice, she walked over to the crushed patrol car and began looking around.

"Yeah," Kevin said, "but more like a kill site on the African plains. You know, like on Wild Kingdom? You'll be going along, and all of a sudden in the tall grass you'll come across a pile of bones?" He picked one of the broken ones up, looked at it, then held the broken end out towards them. "And many of 'em will be broken, so whatever beast did the kill can suck the marrow out of them?"

Linda shivered. "Are you saying there's something in here with us in the Factory, Officer Ryman?"

"Nope," Kevin said, dropping the bone back to the ground. "I'm just making an observation. Besides, if Elza's theory is right, then whatever did this is probably long gone in search of fresh game."

"Like us, you mean," Linda persisted.

Kevin looked at her. "Yeah ..." he finally admitted, "like us."

"Kevin!" Rita called. "Come look at this!"

Kevin left the others and trotted over to where Rita was standing. She was by the half-crushed police car, and she was holding a battered and torn peaked policeman's cap in her hand. Without a further word, she handed it to him. He looked the outside over, saw nothing unusual apart from its condition, then turned it over to look inside – and froze. Despite its condition, the handwritten signature on the inset owner's tag was clearly legible: D. Powell. He looked at Rita. Her face was set hard and her jaw was clenched. "So this is where she was when it happened," he mused aloud. "She must have responded to one of the first riot calls, because all of them were in this part of town ... and when she did ...."

"Yeah," Rita said quietly. She looked down at the peaked cap. "And when it was all over, she couldn't remember anything except to come back to the station. That – and to feed." She gently set the cap back down on the ground where it had been, then looked at Kevin. "There's no sign of her partner Adam."

"If there's anything left of him here, it's probably mixed in with the other bones," Kevin answered grimly.

Rita nodded, then put her hand on the patrol car's partially twisted door. "Hey, gimme a hand, will ya, and let's see if we can get this open. Maybe Darcy can help us one last time."

John eventually had to come over and lend both his brute strength and "zombie knocker" to the effort, but they succeeded. The other three came over but merely watched. From out of the late Darcy Powell's patrol car the two police officers retrieved two full boxes of shotgun shells. The shotgun itself was bent and twisted beyond use from the wreck. They also retrieved another box of nine millimeter ammo, as well as a standard issue RPD first aid kit.

"Now that's a find," Elza offered from the sidelines. "We were about as low on regular medical supplies as we were shotgun ammo."

"Just one more thing for me to carry," Linda grumbled. Everyone ignored her.

The shotgun ammo was quickly split up between Kevin and John, with the remainder going into John's backpack. The medical kit went into Linda's satchel along with what little was left of their own medical supplies. Kevin now re-holstered his pistol and drew his SPAS-12, and John did likewise with his Remington police shotgun. "Now dis is more lak it," John said, as he hefted the weapon in his hands.

"Hey, big boy," Rita chided, "that's a gun – not a club. Don't forget that."

"I won't, Miss Rita," John said with a grin.

"Okay, folks," Kevin said. "We're done here. Time to move out." He walked over to the large metal double-doored gate at the far end of the Factory arrival area. Stopping by its postern door, he motioned the rest of them to follow. Once they had reassembled, he began giving instructions. "All right, then. You know the drill. We find a place to hole up until tomorrow. Linda? Any suggestions?"

Linda looked at the buildings beyond the wall, then pointed to the office building almost directly in front of them. "There. I think that's probably the administration building for this section of the warehouses. It'll be mostly offices, some secure areas, and such. Nice small rooms with only one way in or out – and with furnishings that'll probably be a lot more comfortable than anything we might find in the warehouses. Besides, as wide open as they are inside, there won't be much place to hide – unless you find the right stack of freight or something." She smiled. "And if we're really lucky, we might find a working computer, or site system terminal, or maybe even a company phone whose line isn't dead."

"Whatever for?" Elza asked, trying to hide the note of suspicion that was doing its damnedest to creep into her voice.

Linda smiled thinly. "Why, to contact someone outside and get help, Miss Walker. Not to get in touch with my superiors. Of course not. You and I already had that conversation back when we started our little jaunt through the Sewers, remember?" She looked over at Kevin and Rita. "Don't forget. By now I'm probably just as wanted by Umbrella as the rest of you. Not only am I marked for death by – well, you know," and at that she glanced at Sherry before continuing, "but I'm also probably marked as a renegade, too. Someone who's broken my company contract and revealed company secrets to outsiders. I don't want to die any more than the rest of you. However, if I can find a means of signaling out from here, then perhaps someone outside can hear it – like the soldiers manning the Army blockade at the city's outermost limits, or the like. And if I can, they can come in and save us. Cased closed."

"It ain't gonna be anywhere near that easy, Miss Merton," Elza said. "It's a nice dream, but a dream all the same. A real pipe dream, if you ask me. The only ones who are gonna get us out of this mess is ourselves. Guys?"

Rita looked thoughtful. John was scratching the back of his neck, but said nothing. Kevin regarded the Umbrella woman evenly, but he too held his tongue. It was Sherry who broke the silence. "Maybe you can call my mom and dad, Miss Linda, and tell them where I am. They're probably worried sick about me."

Linda looked at Sherry for a moment, then nodded. "Maybe so, Sherry. We've got to get into the building first." She looked at Kevin. "You have my suggestion. It's the Admin Building straight ahead. The trick now is to get inside." She sighed. "It's going to be locked, and neither my own Umbrella access card nor any pass codes I might know are going to be of any good here."

"How do you know that?" Elza asked. "You haven't even tried."

"Ladies," Kevin said, a note of warning in his voice. The two women looked at him. "All right," he said as calmly as he could. "Let's assume Linda is right – and we certainly don't have any access cards or pass codes of our own. Let's split up into our two teams and search all around the outside of the Admin Building. Our goal is to try to find some way in that doesn't require any kind of security check. Linda, you're with me and Rita. Sherry, you're with Elza and John." He craned his neck, trying to see over the fence, then looked back at the others. "Elza, take your group around this side of the Admin Building, under that overhead catwalk and to wherever that apparent alley or whatever leads. Rita, Linda, and I will take the long way around past those two trailers to the other side of the building. I'm willing to bet that big open area is a parking lot – and if it is, there's gonna be a door there. All we have do after than is figure out how to open it."

"Provided we don't find a back door in that alley and beat you inside first," Elza said, grinning. She looked at both John and Sherry. "Ready, guys?"

"Yes, Miss Elza," Sherry said, in a tone of hushed excitement.

"Ready when youse are," John responded.

"Then we're off," Elza said. She put her hand on the handle for the postern gate door, then looked back at Kevin. "You guys be careful, okay? Whatever cracked those bones may still be around."

"Same to you," Kevin nodded. "Good luck."

* * * * *

The group emerged from the Factory entry area into a large parking lot, bounded on all sides by buildings and fences. Immediately to their right was the long loading dock for the big warehouse located there, with its stairs at its far end. Blocking their view of the parking lot corner ahead and to their right - the one leading to the open space where Kevin hoped the Admin Building's front door was located - were the two internodal container trailers. These ran the full length of the back end of the short base leg for the L-shaped Admin Building. The way to the apparent alley that ran between the Admin Building and the large warehouse to their left, direct access to which was blocked by a high fence, was likewise sealed off by a similar fence that cut directly across and in front of them, sealing the alley off completely. Like the Factory entry area behind them, however, it too had a double-gate and postern door arrangement set into it that had permitted limited access in better times. Hopefully it still would now, too.

Kevin looked at Elza. "Here's where we split up," he said. "You guys go straight ahead. We'll hang around the trailers to the right." He now cast his gaze around. "And everybody keep your eyes open for anything, and I mean anything. Just because we don't see any zombies doesn't mean they're not here."

There was general assent and agreement or nods from everyone except Linda. She merely grunted. With that, the one large group of six survivors split into two groups of three, each moving in its assigned direction. Everybody who had weapons had them out and in walking carries or the nearest equivalent, and everyone swept everywhere with all of their senses as alert as possible ... except for Linda. She merely walked along with Rita and Kevin, one hand clasping the shoulder strap of her small duffel bag while she rested the arm on the bag itself, and wishing they'd hurry up and figure out a way inside the Admin Building so she could rest easy for once. That, plus not saying anything about the very real threat that might still be located in that back alley for Pretty Miss Prissy. If they were anything like what they had encountered at the old RPD station, then there just might be a chance ... but no. Linda was not about to get caught scheming this time. "Silence is golden," she thought to herself, as she walked with the two police officers. She would not say anything, and that way she would not have to reveal anything – and maybe, just maybe, the natural course of events would play in Linda's favor for once. Besides – if it failed, she could always claim ignorance, and that would be at least half-true. She honestly didn't know if the Dobermans that Umbrella kept back there to protect the alley against intruders were still back there. The Outbreak might have claimed them, as it had so much already. But if it hadn't, or if it had and they were now both infected and mutated, well then ... so much the better. At least they'd put Elza back in her place for a while, and might even kill her if Linda was so lucky. And as for John and Sherry? Too bad about John - he was nothing but a lummox, and thus expendable. It would be too bad about Sherry – after all, she was honestly starting to like the little girl. However, her convenient death along the way, as it were, would make for a nice means for her getting back at her mother Annette. Yes ... it would indeed.

* * * * *

The three passed through the postern door that permitted access into the alley behind the Admin Building. Elza was first, then Sherry, and lastly John bringing up the rear. He closed and latched the gate behind them, then turned to look down the alley with the others. The sight that now greeted his eyes, as it had Elza's and Sherry's only seconds before, was by now all too familiar. "Sheesh," John said. "Whut a mess."

The alley ran the length of the short base leg of the Admin Building – the one that bounded its right side from the survivors' point-of-view. On their left was the high fence for the large warehouse; however, about halfway into the alley it indented inward and the warehouse itself replaced the fence as the alley's left boundary. That was due to the presence of a large industrial-type HVAC unit with associated condenser and tank for the warehouse. Both pipes and conduits fed in and out of the apparatus, connecting it directly to the warehouse itself. At the far end of the alley was a high-walled fence, and beyond that could be seen trees and the tops of other buildings farther away – but helping to block this view were two more smaller HVAC units on raised platforms, as well as even more pipes and conduits of assorted sizes. Both had large stack attached to their exhaust fans, which ran up and then angled out of the alley, over the back fence, and into the open area beyond. There were the expected vents and vent grilles on both the warehouse and Admin Building walls, of course, both high and low and both large and small. Also, each building had an opening connected to the alley itself. For the warehouse, it was a set of double doors located at the very end of the alley. For the Admin Building, and this was the only one that Elza was concerned with at the moment, there was a single heavy-duty door located just past the upper catwalk on the alley's right side. Several wooden shipping pallets and various other items were stored in the spaces under the condenser platforms at the end of the alley, but they were all jumbled about as if something had been thrashing its way through them. Some of the pallets were broken, but the damage was random and haphazard – as if something had chewed or torn them apart, as opposed to being cracked or split by a heavy load on them.

All of this Elza and the others absorbed in a moment, because right now their attention was focused on the bodies in the alley. They were four-legged, about the size of a kitchen chair or perhaps a bit larger, and were apparently scattered at random down the full length of the alley. The closest was lying almost dead center in that part of the alley, and only a few feet away from a ground-level grate and vent set in the wall of the Admin Building. The bodies were savagely mutilated, too – as if something had attacked them but had been interrupted before it finished the job.

"Dobermans," Elza heard herself saying. "Guard dogs. Figures. Must have been part of the security arrangements for the Factory."

"Miss Elza?" Sherry said, pressing close. "I'm scared."

Holding her autopistol with her gun hand, Elza reached around Sherry with the other and hugged her. "It's all right, hon. They're dead."

"But they might come back to life again, like the dogs at the police station."

Elza nodded. "Yes, Sherry, but none of them are twitching. Remember that? Anything that's infected with the T-virus before it died always twitches if it's eventually gonna come back to life. That is," she added thoughtfully, "unless it's about to go Crimson on you. "

"I wish ya hadn't said dat last bit," John said. He chewed his lip. "Ya knows we gotta walk rite into 'em ta git ta dat back door," he said. "Ya think dogs kin turn, too?"

"I dunno," Elza answered honestly. "That's why it's so hard to tell apart a zombie that's really dead from one that's about to go Crimson. There's no way to tell until it actually happens." She looked at the nearest dog again. It did not give even the slightest sign of any kind of movement. "I guess we'll just have to take the chance," she added. Sherry started to say something, but stopped as Elza removed her arm from around the little girl, then used it to grip her autopistol in a walking carry. "Okay, guys," she said. "Nice and easy. Watch for anything."

Together, the three walked almost the full length of the alley, keeping half-an-eye on the motionless bodies of the dogs, until they came to the back door of the Admin Building. Their senses were at full alert. They watched for the slightest movement and listened for the slightest sound from the mutilated Dobermans. Nothing. They made it all the way to the back door, and then Elza tried the handle. It barely moved before it clicked against its deadbolt. "Locked," Elza said. "Figures." She looked at the HVAC machinery and ductwork at the back of the alley, then turned and looked back at the warehouse's own equipment. From there her eyes were inevitably drawn to the high catwalk running between the two buildings. "If only there were a way to climb up," she mused aloud.

"We don't have to, Miss Elza," Sherry said. "I know another way in."

Both adults gave surprised looks at Sherry. "How come you didn't say anything about a way in before?" Elza finally managed to get out.

"Because I didn't want Miss Linda finding out," Sherry said, looking down. There was a despondent tone to her voice. "She doesn't like me, and she hates you, Miss Elza. She hurt me, and she tried to kill you. I don't like her anymore, and I'm not gonna ever tell her anything I know." She now looked up at Elza and smiled. "But I'll tell you, Miss Elza, now that Miss Linda isn't here, because I like you – and I'll tell Uncle John, too, because he's so nice to me. I know another way in, and it's right back here."

Elza looked at John, grinning. "Well I'll be ...." she said.

"Outta da mouths of babes," John answered, grinning back.

Elza tousled the back of Sherry's hair with her hand. "You wonderful little rugrat. Thanks from both of us. Will you show us where it is?"

Sherry detached herself from Elza and ran back up the alley, under the overhead catwalk and straight past the bodies of two of the Dobermans. She stopped at the first large ground-level vent they had passed in the outer wall of the Admin Building. She pointedly avoided looking at the body of the dead Doberman not all that far away, as she stood by the grate and motioned to them. "Here it is! You can get into the Lobby through here!"

The two adults now trotted down the alley until they two were standing by the vent. Sherry waited patiently for them, her hands clasped behind her back, rocking back and forth on her heels. As soon as they joined her, though, she dropped to her hands and knees and began tugging at the grate. "I sometimes came to visit my dad here back when I was just a kid, and he worked in the part of the Lab that's directly below this part of the Factory. He works in a different part now, but he worked a long time here down below. Me and my friends - the kids of some of the other people who worked here - played a lot all around the buildings while we were here. That's how I found this secret entrance to the Lobby." Even as she spoke, the grate came loose in her hands, and she pushed it to one side. "This grate isn't fastened on, you see, so you can pull it off and sneak inside. I used to use it to sneak into the Lobby and hide behind the stairs, whenever we'd play hide-and-seek. The security guard at the desk would pretend he didn't see me come in,, and that's why no one ever found me." With that, and much to Elza and John's consternation, Sherry dived headfirst into the vent. "I'll go in, go around, and unlock the back door for you. I'll be back soon."

"Sherry!" Elza cried. "Wait!"

The words were hardly out of Elza's mouth when they heard the sound of gunfire from the other side of the Admin Building. Immediately, as if in response, there was a rustling and a bone-cracking popping from directly behind them, as well as farther on down the alley. It was also accompanied by a peculiar weird wheezing noise – as if something or someone that hadn't breathed in a very long time was taking in its first gasping breaths. Both Elza and John whirled around to see that the body of the Doberman that was closest to them was no longer lying still, but was in convulsions. So too were the bodies of every other Doberman in the alley. Even as both John and Elza brought their weapons to bear, sharp protrusions of bone suddenly shot out from the bodies of the dogs even as they were staggering up to their feet – sending little fountains of blood flying as they popped out and rapidly grew to size. Even their normally short claws on their paws thickened and lengthened, and both their jaws and their teeth distended into frightening proportions. The entire process took only a few seconds. By the time all of the undead animals were back on their feet, making guttural growling noises and beginning to move towards the two humans, they only bore a general likeness to a dog. Their new appearance was more like a razorback or warthog with a spiked spine and a wolverine jaw – not unlike an undead version of a Klingon targ from the ever-popular STAR TREK science fiction franchise.

"Crimson Dobermans?" Elza wondered aloud. "No wonder they didn't twitch! They were in the process of mutating!"

"Holy shit!" John said.

With that, all the undead things leapt to the attack – and both Elza and John's guns roared in instant reply.

* * * * *

The loading dock for the first warehouse had proven to be a bust. To make matters worse, both the normal and loading doors for the warehouse were locked from the inside. There was no way to open the loading doors from the outside, of course, but the regular-sized door had a normal keyed deadbolt lock. That meant finding the key ... and that was probably going to be inside the Admin Building.

"Our first thing to find on this stage of our little journey," Kevin grinned, as he turned away from the locked door. "This is getting to be a habit, you know."

Their next stop was one of the internodal container trailers, whose doors just happened to be open. The trailer was about one-third full, and the nearby abandoned forklift gave evidence that it was probably being either loaded or unloaded away from the dock when the Outbreak had ravaged the Factory. The seat of the forklift was covered in dried blood, and there were pieces of splintered bones scattered behind it. There was also a large dried patch of blood in the middle of the trailer floor, with a long trail leading from it back to the open doors. Nearby, along the base of the fence that cut this side of the parking lot in two, was another half-scattered pile of bloody and broken bones.

"Doesn't take a detective to see what happened here," Rita said, grimacing. She looked at the abandoned forklift and then at the open trailer. She then walked up to the open back end of the trailer and looked inside. She saw that it was not completely empty, and wondered aloud. "Why would they keep that stuff outside in a trailer, instead of in one of the warehouses?"

"Lots of reasons," Kevin said. He now walked up and looked inside as well. "It might be overflow from the warehouse, or the area in which its supposed to be stored inside is already full. It could be local supplies that they've moved out temporarily to make room for more freight, or they might do it this way all the time. Big companies do this a lot, you know. If you got enough trailers, and Umbrella's probably got scads of 'em, then you've got a nice way to set up temporary storage wherever you want." He took the hand from the upper grip of his shotgun and used it to pat the outer edge of the trailer's high floor. "These look like old trailers. Probably got pulled for this because it was cheaper than fixing 'em. Stuff like this goes on all the time with companies like this, Rita."

"I see," Rita said. "Think we should take a look inside?"

Kevin shook his head. "No reason, unless there might be some supplies in there we could use. Darcy's already helped us out there with all that we really needed. We could look if you want, and we might even find something useful – but I don't see any point in doing so when we don't have to."

"That makes perfect sense to me," Linda said from behind them. "We need to get into the Admin Building as fast as possible."

Both police officers turned to look at her. "What's the rush?" Rita asked.

Linda visibly shivered. "I don't know. There's just something about this whole setup. It gives me the willies. You know – female intuition and all that?"

Rita looked thoughtful. "She may have a point there, Kevin. I've been kinda feelin' uneasy about this whole thing myself. I mean, we haven't met any zombie or monster yet that's left behind all of these broken bone piles we've been finding – and I got a bad feeling that whatever did it is still here."

Kevin looked at Rita, then at Linda. He couldn't think of any reason why two such different people would feel the same way, unless it was that woman's intuition thing as Linda claimed. Yet it couldn't be, for he was feeling uneasy, too. "All right," he said. "Let's move on. If the Admin Building's got a front door, it'll be past the next gate."

It was only when they were through the gate that they heard the noises. They weren't coming from either the Admin Building or the parking lot, but from a small building immediately to their right that was most likely an outside security hut or guard shack or the like. It sounded like several children slurping and chewing breakfast cereal all at the same time. Even the racket the trio made in coming through that last postern gate didn't seem to affect whoever or whatever was making those noises, and they continued unabated. The three looked at each other, just as the unmistakable crack! of a bone being broken sounded from the hut.

"Whatever it is," Kevin said, as he raised his shotgun to the ready, "I think we're about to meet it." He edged his way towards the security hut's door, ready to open fire at a moment's notice. Rita followed behind, while Linda gladly dropped to the rear. What Kevin saw next was a sight he would never forget.

The four Crimson Zombies were all huddled around what had been the body of a man that had been lying on the floor of the hut. Had been was the operative term. All that was left now was a very large and long-since-dried pool of blood and a disorganized jumble of bones that had been pretty much picked clean. What the Crimson Zombies were doing were taking the bones, using their sheer strength to break them, and then sucking the marrow out of the broken ends. It was a scene straight out of the old Wild Kingdom television program, just as Kevin had described earlier – save that this was happening inside of a major city in what was supposed to be a secure location, and this was being done by things that used to be human.

It was fortunate that the four Crimsons were so involved with their bone-sucking that they hadn't heard Kevin and his party come through the nearby postern gate. It was a good thing it had been well-oiled, too, Kevin thought, as he immediately opened fire – not waiting to give any warning. This was the best way to deal with Crimson Zombies, as his own recent personal experience had proven. Kevin's SPAS-12 roared again and again as he let loose in rapid-fire mode at the Crimsons, penned inside the small confines of the hut with final death (in the form of Kevin) blocking their only way back out. Total carnage raged within that hut for a few seconds – and then it was all over. Four very dead Crimson Zombies now lay on the floor of the hut, creating their own pools of blood, as Kevin and the two ladies carefully stepped inside.

"Eeewwww," Linda said, disgusted by both the sight and the smell. Rita looked at her, but LInda shrugged sheepishly. "God knows I've been around this enough now, but I'm still not really used to it," she admitted. She then turned and headed for the door. "I'm going to go get some fresh air, if you don't mind."

Rita smiled sadly. "I hope you never do, Linda. I hope none of us do. If we do, then we're goners."

The door closed behind Linda, and they heard her footfalls as they headed around the security hut and towards the front of the Admin Building. Then they heard a scream, and running feet heading back in their direction, accompanied by an all-too-familiar and steadily closing set of peculiar corkscrew hisses.

"Oh, shit." Kevin said.

* * * * *

There was just enough room for Sherry inside the ground level vent to remain in her crawling pose while fully inside the Admin Building's outer wall. She pressed up close to the grate that covered the Lobby floor vent's opening but did not remove it, as she knew she could. Her experiences the past four days had taught her to be cautious. Instead, she looked around the Lobby through the grate as far as she could see. She couldn't see the whole Lobby from where she was – but what she could see suddenly made her realize that just going on in would have been a very bad idea. There were at least three of the pink inside-out zombies in there, crawling around. Two were on the walls, and one was on the floor. Fortunately the one of the floor was on the other side of the room, so it didn't see or apparently sense her. There was all kinds of stuff on all of the furniture in the Lobby – stuff that looked like coarse spiderwebs or strands of webs, and other stuff that Sherry was pretty sure by now was monster doo-doo. She looked all around the Lobby, but couldn't see anything else. She then decided to look up over the Lobby front doors – and literally froze at what she saw.

There was a man plastered upside down hanging from the wall over the windows above the Lobby doors. No, not plastered ... attached there by more of the spiderweb stuff. It covered and completely encased his legs and spread like a spiderburst on the wall behind him, firmly fixing him in place. He simply hung there, arms and head down, not moving at all save for his breathing. It reminded Sherry of similar things she had seen in a number of scary movies – ones she had to sneak around behind her parents' back to watch, since they never would have given her permission to watch them. By all rights the man should be dead, judging from how bad he looked, with his mottled skin and the red patches on his head where large clumps of his hair were missing – and yet ... and yet ... he breathed. It was a steady, regular motion, as if he were asleep or resting. Was this the work of those giant spiders from the Sewers? Were they up here too?

Suddenly there was a scream sounding from somewhere in the front of the building. Sherry lifted her head, looking forward and listening. It was coming from beyond the glass Lobby doors and off to the right. The three inside-out zombies had reacted immediately, skittering towards the glass panes on the left side of the doors. Sherry looked to where they were all heading, and saw a high transom window above one of the panes that was propped open. Linda was standing there, frozen just past a parked police car and staring in horror at the three inside-out things clinging to the glass. All of them were hissing at her, super-long tongues waving out of their teeth-filled mouths. She turned and ran screaming back the way she came – and when she did, all three of the things went for the open transom window to go after her.

Now she heard the muffled sound of gunfire in the alley behind her. It was almost impossible for her to turn around in such a confined space, and she did not try. Instead, she bent her head down and looked between her legs. She saw Elza's biker boots run past the hole, closely pursued by something that had four doglike paws but with super-long claws. There was the sound of automatic weapons fire, followed hard on by a yelp that sounded like a cross between a crazed monkey and a howling dog, and then the roar of a shotgun.

"I'm trapped!" Sherry thought. "They're fighting on both sides of the building. I'd better stay here until they're done."

Just then, something smacked into the ground vent's grate cover on the Lobby side with tremendous force. Sherry looked up just in time to see the longest tongue she had ever seen in anything flying back into the mouth of the man on the wall. It was now looking at her with sightless eyes that had no trace of iris, pupil, or even blood vessels, and its hands now waved in the air as if it were trying to grope its way towards her. The thing let out a hiss that sounded like one coming from an old-fashioned steam whistle, and then it flung its tongue out again. Sherry recoiled instantly as it smacked the vent grille again with the tip of its tongue, with a force so strong that the grill dented in a good quarter-inch. The tongue was withdrawn, the thing hissed, and then it flew out ant smacked into the grill again, denting it in towards Sherry a little more.

Sherry was now truly trapped, with enemies before and behind, and nowhere to go. She curled up inside the wall as best she could, not knowing where to go or what to do. The others had to beat the monsters out there – they just had to! "Please, Miss Elza ...!" Sherry whispered. "Hurry!"

Even as Sherry made her silent plea, the man on the wall let fly his tongue again – and the vent grille was dented inward towards Sherry just a little more.

* * * * *

As if the fight with the four Crimson Zombies hadn't been bad enough, even given that Kevin and Rita both got the jump on them and essentially had them trapped in the security hut, what made it worse was that ... Umbrella woman! ... stirring up trouble again! "How the hell does she do it?" Kevin thought grimly, as he danced a deadly jig with all three of the pink things. "Just how in the hell does she do it? And where in the hell is she? Where'd she go?!" Both he and Rita now had their hands full with their multiple undead foes ... and that had left Linda free to ... what?

"Rita!" Kevin yelled, as he whirled around. Rita heard the warning and dived, just as Kevin shot the pink thing behind her that had been about to jump her. She in turn finished her dive by capping one of the knees of another of the pink things, for it was trying to make a lunge at Kevin. The thing was sent screeching and spinning off to one side even as Kevin opened fire on the third of the pink things. Damn, but they were fast! And those long-ass tongues of theirs! Like old-fashioned whips or flails! Kevin's arm already had several welts on it from hits by them, and there were long narrow rents in both his uniform and Rita's from other such strikes.

"Thanks!" Rita hollered back, even as she kept shooting.

"Have you seen Linda?!" Kevin replied loudly, shooting on the run as he chased one of the pink things around a parked police car.

"She left!" Rita yelled back, playing gun-tag with her own pink thing. "Ran back out the gate as soon as all the fun started!"

"Oh, fucking swell!" Kevin cursed. His SPAS-12 was now out and it boomed. One of the pink things went down for good. "Whaddya think she's doin'?"

"Finding a place to hide!" Rita cried back. She put five rounds rapid into the pink thing in front of her, then changed clips and began firing again even as the remaining pink thing lunged to the attack. "She's got no gun, you know!"

"Oh, yeah!" Kevin said, as his SPAS-12 roared yet again.

* * * * *

Things were no better in the alley behind the Admin Building, where Elza and John had all they could manage and more with their newfound foes. The Crimson Dobermans might not have had the long, flail-like tongues of the pink things they had first seen in the Sewers, and which were currently giving Kevin and Rita so much trouble, but they had more than enough teeth, spikes, and claws to make up for it. Both Elza and John had already been grazed several times apiece, for they simply could not move fast enough to get out of the way. Even so, they were winning. One of the things was already down and out, and another was obviously dying as it spun in a bloody circle, the stumps from the blown-away legs on its right side not permitting much more in the way of movement. It wasn't Elza's hardest fight in her Outbreak adventure, for nothing yet could top her deadly cat-and-mouse game with the hunter in the RPD Parking Garage earlier. Still, it was one helluva fight.

They heard the metal smacking sound even as they fought. It seemed to be coming from behind them. Elza found just enough time after dispatching yet another Crimson Doberman to listen. It was low and to the ground, and echoed a bit. In fact, it was coming from ...

"Sherry!" Elza cried, even as another Crimson Doberman wheeled around and leapt to the attack.

* * * * *

Linda ran across the warehouse parking lot. She could clearly hear the sounds of both gunfire and unnatural snarls and yelps from both the front and the back of the Admin Building. It had all gone wrong – it had all gone horribly wrong! There were only supposed to be the dogs in the back of the building – not lickers inside the Lobby! Oh, yes – Linda knew what they were. She had feared she would see them again ever since the ones they had seen earlier, scouting ahead for that undead horde in the Sewers. She also knew what was probably inside there with them, and what all of them would become given enough time for the T-virus to work. And it had been four days already, at least. The more advanced licker forms were probably already appearing in places, too! What was she going to do?! She didn't have a gun and she couldn't escape to Dr. Birkin's lab because of that locked door, and that left her only one option: hide. But where? Ah, there! The open trailer!

Linda spun to her right and promptly headed for the parked blue trailer – the one with the open rear doors. With an effort, she managed to climb up inside. She ran halfway down the trailer and then clambered up onto the boxes and stacked pallets in its front end. There wasn't much room, but soon she was snuggled in safely out of sight from outside, but from where she could still see out the open doors at the other end.

If anything found her in here, she was dead meat – and Linda knew it. Her back was to the wall, and there was no place else to go. She simply didn't have any other choice. It was hide or die, and she'd probably die anyway, in a most horrible and gruesome fashion, as soon as the undead found her. Still, it was her only option if she wanted a few more precious minutes of life to live.

"If I ever get out of this," Linda swore to herself, "I'm gonna get me a gun – even if I have to go right over those cops to do it."

* * * * *

BAM!! BAM!!! BAM!!!

The badly damaged vent grill was bending in farther and farther. Any minute now, it would break open. Sherry had already backed up as far as she dared inside the vent. Any farther and she'd be outside again, where whatever had attacked Miss Elza and Uncle John could get her. She didn't want to die! She was just a little girl!

Sherry was so frightened out of her wits that she didn't notice when the sounds of gunfire stopped in the alley beyond the vent. She did notice when a pair of arms reached into the vent, grabbed her ankles, and yanked her out. Sherry screamed.

BA-BAM!!!!

The Lobby vent grill gave way, flying back with such force that a piece of it hit Sherry in the head. No, it was something behind that piece that was driving it! Something strong, and firm, pushing as hard as it could. Yet whoever or whatever had grabbed her ankles from outside had started pulling just in the nick of time. She was yanked out of the vent and back into the alley, blood streaming from a cut just above her hairline from the jagged edge of the broken grill piece. The thing that had been pushing that piece came out too, but a deafening shotgun blast at point-blank range caused it to withdraw immediately. There was an unearthly wail from inside the Admin Building Lobby ... and then there was silence. Both in the alley and around in the front of the building, there was total silence.

The half-dazed Sherry found herself in Elza's arms, with the young woman dabbing at her head cut with a piece of cloth. Immediately she leapt up and hugged her tight. Elza's arms went up in surprise, then they settled around her in the kind of comforting way that her own mother's had never done. Sherry was crying, her eyes blinded by both blood and tears, and she couldn't make out a word of what Elza was saying. All she knew was that Miss Elza was saying kind things, and Miss Elza's arms were around her holding her, and caressing her, and gently patting her back and shoulders. Uncle John was there too, and she saw his rough but gentle hands take the bloody cloth from Miss Elza and begin dabbing at the cut on her head.

Elza's radio chirped. Cradling the weeping Sherry as best she could in her left arm, she used her right hand to pull out the radio from her armor vest and keyed the mike. "Elza here."

"This is Kevin," came the reply. "We've had the devil's due up here, but it's over for now. How are you?"

Elza privately wondered how Kevin could sound so nonchalant, especially after what both groups of survivors had apparently been through. It had to be something in his makeup, she decided. "About as well-off as you guys, I'd say," she responded. "John and I have some minor wounds but nothing serious. Sherry took a bad hit to the head from whatever's inside the Lobby, but she'll be all right."

"She went in there? Alone?!"

"She tried to. She found a ground level vent she knew how to open from having played here when she was younger. She had the vent cover off and was inside before we could stop her. She was only trying to help, Kevin, and she didn't know what was in there. Please don't jump her. If anything, jump me for not catching her before she did it."

There was a pause, and then the radio crackled with static. "Sounds like Sherry's a brave little girl."

"And as foolhardy as some of us," Elza said, "myself included."

There was a pause, then her radio sounded again. "Agreed," Kevin replied – but she could almost see the self-effacing grin on his face as he said it.

From the sound of Kevin's voice, Elza guessed he was smiling on his end as much as she was on hers. "Okay, boss, we got nowhere on round one. We beat our enemies but we can't get inside due to whatever's in there that's even more nasty. Stalemate. Any suggestions?"

"One. You guys come back around here with us. There's a security hut in the parking lot on this side that Rita and I are clearing out. We'll use it for shelter for now, until we can come up with something better."

"Where's Useless?"

"You mean Linda? Hiding somewhere, we think. She doesn't have a gun, remember?"

"Yeah." Elza answered automatically, but already she was thinking. Linda was out of sight again. That could mean anything – and that Umbrella woman was both unpredictable and not to be trusted. Still, given what had just happened to both of their groups, it probably couldn't have been helped. "Okay, we're on our way back," she finally said. "We'll keep an eye out for Miss Merton on the return trip."

"Roger that. Kevin, out."

Sherry's crying had been reduced to small sobs and whimpers by the time Elza was finished with the radio call. Elza put her radio back in its pouch on her armor vest, then put her free arm back around Sherry again. "We gotta move, baby. Kevin wants us all to hook back up again. Are you gonna be all right?"

"I'm scared," Sherry said in a half-whimper.

"Here, Miss Elza," John said. "Let me." He slung his shotgun back over his shoulder, then bent down towards the little girl and held out his hands. "Ups-a-daisy, Miss Sherry," he said. "Uncle John will carry ya."

Without a moment's hesitation Sherry practically leapt out of Elza's arms and into John's outstretched ones. He stood back up, cradling her in his arms as he did so. She put her own arms around his neck and snuggled her head into his shoulder, still making the occasional sob. "Dere, dere," John said softly. "Uncle John's gotcha now. Ain't nuthin' gonna gitcha so long as Uncle John's gotcha."

Elza looked at John admiringly. "You'd make somebody a great dad," she said – and she meant it.

John blushed. "T'ain't nuthin', Miss Elza. Ya jes' gotta talk ta kids on dere level." He glanced around at the dead mutant animals littering the alley, then back at Elza. "C'mon. Let's hook back up with da udders."

* * * * *

Elza and John, with Sherry still cradled in John's arms, were walking past the open trailer at the other end of the warehouse parking lot when they heard Linda call out. "Hey! Is it over?" Both of them turned to look. Inside the trailer and up by the nose end, where the partial load of boxes and pallets was stacked, they could just make out a head in the space between the top of the stacked freight and the trailer roof.

"Linda?" Elza said, with some surprise. "How did you get back in there?"

"It wasn't easy," Linda said, as she slowly began to worm her way up and out of her hidey hole. "But when you don't have a gun to protect yourself, your options are kinda limited. Wait up, and I'll come with you."

For a moment Elza considered leaving her. Given the past bad blood between them, and what Linda had actually tried to do to Elza, it would in Elza's mind have been a perfectly reasonable thing to do. However, Daniel and Maureen Walker had raised their daughter according to old-fashioned American morals and precepts. This included, among other things, doing the right thing whether you wanted to or not and whether it was convenient or not. That is why Elza dismissed the thought and nudged John. "Let's hold up," she said softly.

John looked at her for a moment, one eyebrow raised, then shrugged his shoulders. "'Kay," he said.

They waited while Linda laboriously extracted herself from the back of the trailer. They both had to stifle a laugh as she ingloriously fell on her rump on the trailer's floor in her final scramble out from the boxes and pallets and into the clear. When she looked up, their faces were as straight as they could manage. She seemed excited as she dropped out of the back of the trailer and trotted over to them. "I was beginning to wonder," she said. "It sounded like a terrible fight – one in which I wouldn't have lasted long, with me, well, you know."

"Yeah," Elza said. She nodded towards the gate to their right. "C'mon. Let's go rejoin the others."

"No, wait!" LInda said. "I found something in that trailer we can use!"

"Oh?" Elza said, arching an eyebrow. "What?"

* * * * *

What Linda had found in the trailer were two pallets of bottled water. It had taken all six of them a bit to work out enough of the water bottles for all of them, as the pallets containing them were located halfway down one of the stacks in the trailer's nose. Eventually, though, all of them had returned to the security hut with armfuls of water bottles. They drank, they splashed themselves with it, and they used it to wash their faces, hands and arms – as well their wounds. All of them had been wounded in some way this time, even little Sherry, and their next order of business was to bandage as much of it up as they could.

Kevin slammed down an entire bottle of water in one swig. He let out a contented, lip-smacking sigh, then tossed the empty bottle in a corner of the security hut. "Good find, Linda! I never knew lukewarm water could taste soooo good." He gave Rita a sidewise smirk. "Beats taking those damn herb powders straight."

"Oh, quit your whining," Rita said, but her eyes were twinkling. "So crude! I see I'm going to have my work cut out with you, young man."

All of them were now gathered inside the security hut, just inside the gate and fence for the parking lot in front of the Admin Building. Kevin and Rita had cleaned out all of the bones and dragged the bodies of the Crimsons outside. When the others had first arrived, they helped drag them even farther – outside the gate and into the other parking lot. Elza also used her knife to slit their throats. They weren't taking any chances on them reviving unexpectedly and catching them by surprise. Once they were done, the rather weary and battle-worn group of survivors had reassembled inside the hut, where Rita promptly handed out herbal powders to everyone. "We've all come in contact with body fluids from those things over the past few minutes," she pointed out. "Blood, saliva, lymph fluid, and other stuff. Any or all of us could be infected by now - even you, Sherry - so we don't need to take any chances."

"These herbs won't cure the T-virus," Linda pointed out, after she and the others had taken their herb powders.

"No, but they arrest its effects, as you well know," Elza promptly retorted. "They'll fix it in place until we can get a proper antidote."

Rita now began to loosen her tie and started to unbutton her uniform blouse. "Okay, folks," she said. "Time to get all our wounds fixed up, too." She suddenly stopped, for everyone was looking at her. She smiled back at them, saying, "Well? You ain't gonna be able to fix up my back and shoulders if I have this thing on, are ya? Don't look so silly! We're all adults here – 'ceptin' you, Sherry, but you're a big girl - and you ain't gonna see nuthin' you ain't seen before, so don't worry about it."

The one person whom it might have been thought would have been the most supportive of such a development was turning out to be the one most embarrassed. "Uhhhh, Miss Rita?" John said, suddenly blushing and turning aside. "Ise gonna go stan' guard outside, if ya doan mind, until you're deecint and ya folks is ready ta fix me up, too. Okay?"

"Why?" Rita said. "What's the matter, John?"

"Uhhh," John said, pulling at his t-shirt collar, "I jes' doan think it's rite ta look at a woman who's hurt an', well, uncovered, if ya know whats I mean. It's sick."

Rita nodded and smiled. "You decent, honorable lug. Okay, off with you."

Kevin rose too. "I'll go keep him company," he said with a wink at Rita. "Let us know when you're ready for us, okay?" The two men left, leaving the three women and Sherry alone in the guard shack.

Elza looked at the guard shack door, which Kevin had closed behind them. "Can you beat that?," she said, smiling after them. "Looks like there are some decent men in the world after all."

Rita already had her blouse off by this point, and had turned so that her welt-and-cut-covered shoulders and back were to Linda. The Umbrella woman began to clean and treat them, as well as bandage those wounds that she could, using their medical supplies. "There are a lot of decent men, Elza," Rita said. She flinched from Linda's attention to one of the deeper cuts, but did not cry out. "It's just been the unfortunate fate of some of us to have tangled with some of the more indecent ones."

Elza nodded. "You can say that again." She thought a moment, then furrowed her brow. "You, Rita?"

Rita gave a sad smile and nodded. "Yeah, me. A while back, I got married to someone I thought was the most wonderful man in the world. Donald turned out to be a sadistic control freak who had to have his way with everything, including me. Before we married, he was the ideal Prince Charming. After we married, he was Massah and I was his personal slave."

"What happened?" Elza asked.

"One day he went too far," Rita said. She winced again as Linda went to work cleaning and dressing another of Rita's wounds, but again did not cry out. "I had put up with a lot out of him up to that point, far more that most people would or I should have. I had even done some things that looking back now I wish I hadn't, but all because I was trying to save our marriage. That is, until he went too far. One day ... Donald hit me."

Both Elza and Linda looked shocked. Sherry's eyes rounded. "What did you do?" Elza asked.

"I reacted automatically," Rita said. "Donald should have remembered I was a black belt." She sighed. "I broke his arm, put him in the hospital. Half-an-hour later, I had filed for divorce with my attorney and then turned myself in at the department for assault." She laughed sadly. "Everybody there knew what was going on, of course. We both worked there, so there was no hiding it. That's why they didn't press any charges against me. And while Donald was still in the hospital, and still getting over my attorney serving him divorce papers, the chief himself showed up and gave him two choices – resign, or be fired and charged with spouse abuse – and that was just for starters. You can well imagine which one he chose."

Elza nodded. "I'll bet he never bothered you again."

"I don't know if he even tried," Rita said, "because that's when I put in my transfer to Raccoon City. I haven't heard from him since I left Memphis – and frankly, I hope I never do again. For all I know, he probably finally found that mousy little woman he could boss around and do with whatever he wanted to do and whenever he wanted to do it." She smiled sadly. "He got more than he bargained for with me."

"I'll bet," Linda said. She looked at Elza. "So what's your story?"

"Eh?" Elza said, looking at her.

"You reacted, too." Linda pointed out. "Somewhere in your life was an indecent man you've tangled with. Care to share?"

Elza looked at her for a long moment, then at Rita. She shook her head. "No. It's kinda ... personal." She then looked directly at Linda. "What about you? Any indecent men in your life?"

"Only that creepy Michael Carter in the downtown office," Linda said, and she visibly shivered. "I swear, he undresses me with his eyes every time he looks at me."

"Sounds like a real sicko to me," Elza said.

"Excuse me," Sherry said. She moved over so that Rita could see her while Linda worked on Rita's back. "Miss Rita? The cut on my head itches bad."

"It does?" Rita said. "Let me see. Linda, let me bend up a bit." Adjustments were made, and Rita bent up enough so that she could reach up and run her fingers through the front of Sherry's hair. She grinned and laughed. "It's nothing, Sherry. You've just got a nice-looking scab forming up there. Your hair will hide it, so no one will see it. That itching is just your body's way of telling you that it's healing."

"And whatever you do," Elza added, "don't scratch it. It's gonna itch fierce sometimes, but don't scratch it. All you'll do is scratch off the scab and make it bleed again."

"Okay," Sherry said, sounding disappointed. "But it itches bad."

"If you'll close your eyes," Rita said, holding up a first aid spray in one hand, "I'll put some of this on it. Maybe that'll help." Sherry did as she was told, and it was over in a matter of seconds. "What I'd give for a tube of Benadryl® cream right now," Rita said as she set the can back down.

"Hey," Elza said, smiling at Sherry. "Wanna see something?"

"What?" Sherry asked.

Elza bent her head down and begin running her fingers through the front part of her hair. Before long, a long pink scar was revealed just behind Elza's hairline. Sherry's eyes opened wide. "You see?" Elza said, her head still down so Sherry could see the scar. "I got one of those, too. I know how it is, and I say the best thing you can do is listen to Miss Rita. Okay?"

Sherry nodded. "Okay," she said, now thoroughly distracted. "When did you get it?"

Elza lowered her hands and threw her head back, so her hair would fall back into place. "I got it in tenth grade, when I was out hunting one weekend right after school started. My dad, my brother, and I were out hunting a pack of wolves that had been causing trouble with the local farms. To make a long story short, the wolves had killed the cub of a black bear, and I happened across the kill right about the same time that Mama Bear did. She thought I had been the one to kill her cub, so she went after me. I'd be dead today if Dad and Randy hadn't been nearby, and shot the bear even as I was being mauled. I got lucky – the only thing it had time to do to me that was serious was to literally scalp me." She laughed. "I almost had to repeat the tenth grade because of that, because I was in the hospital for three months while they were sewing my head back on. If it hadn't been for Claire, I would have."

"Claire?" Sherry asked.

"Claire Redfield," Elza said, practically beaming. "My best friend in the whole world. And just because she's my best friend, she took notes for me in all my classes and brought me my homework assignments, and then took my homework back with her. That way I didn't miss out on much. And she and her brother Chris worked with my parents and their parents and the school, too, so that the teachers occasionally came to visit me and helped me even more." She let out a long, contented sigh, her face beaming at its end. "Claire Redfield really is someone special, Sherry. I hope you get to meet her someday."

"Just a minute, Miss Burnside," Linda interrupted. "I need to move your left bra strap so I can get at one of these longer welts. Blood has dried both to it and your skin, so it may hurt when I pull on it."

"Would this help?" Rita said, holding up one of her bullets and grinning.

Linda got the joke and smiled. "It might," she said. "Your option."

"Brass doesn't taste good," Rita said. "I'll just have to deal wit--ooowww!!!" She winced visibly as Linda deftly moved the strap to the outside of her shoulder.

"Sorry about that," Linda said, "but I did warn you."

"It's okay," Rita said, then smiled at the others. "Her bedside manner is better than mine. You should have seen Kevin when I dug those shotgun pellets out of him down in the Sewers. Hey – what's the matter, Sherry?"

Rita had noticed that the little girl had suddenly started looking forlorn. She looked up at Rita, and answered in a small voice. "I was just thinking about my mom and dad. That's all."

* * * * *

Kevin and John were standing outside the door to the security hut, looking at the Admin Building to their front and right. It seemed so peaceful now ... save for the bloodstains on the parking lot and the remains of – what had Linda called them? Lickers? - that now dotted it here and there. Kevin mused on the information Linda had revealed as they worked to haul the bottled water back to the security office.

"Lickers," Linda had said, "are what humans ultimately become whenever the T-virus is allowed to run its course. There are six basic stages of mutation of which Umbrella is aware, with lickers or licker-like beings representing the last four. The zombie and Crimson Zombie you know, and you've seen the first form of licker. That's stage four. There's an intermediate stage, or more like a dead-end offshoot, that's stage three. You sometimes see it in certain cases where a first-form licker still retains human-like aspects and can apparently influence or control the later stage lickers – just how, we don't honestly know. That's probably what Sherry encountered in the Admin Building Lobby, based on what she saw through that vent and the way I saw the other lickers behaving from outside. Those are known as the Regent and Regis Lickers, depending on their gender. We haven't yet met any of the last two forms of licker, and I hope we never do, because those are the truly terrifying ones. They're bigger and stronger than the stage four licker, more resistant to damage, and the final form - leastways the last one Umbrella knows about - adds to that both venomous teeth and a thick weapon-resistant skin that's like a cross between an alligator's hide and insect chitin. We don't know if there's anymore because the people who were researching that project had to kill the lickers once they reached stage six. They simply became too violent for Umbrella to handle by any means available at the time.

"There's something else, Officer Ryman. Miss Walker couldn't have been more wrong about this being the eye of the storm. It's more like a nexus, or focal point. Not the eye of the storm, like a hurricane, but the churning and flotsam-laden center of a tornado or whirlpool. Think about it for a moment. The Outbreak has had four days to have at everything here. If Umbrella's own research into mutagenic T-viral forms is any indication, those infected will have enacted the basic principle of survival of the fittest to its most extreme extent. Any lesser forms will be quickly killed off, and only those who can by whatever means manage to co-exist with the higher mutations will survive. Not only that, but the higher mutations, now that they are firmly established, will continue to mutate and evolve according to how the T-virus has affected their particular physiology and metabolism. There's no telling what we're going to run into next, Officer Ryman. That's why the best thing we can do is get out of here as fast as possible – and if there's any way my special knowledge can aid to hasten our departure, it's yours. I've no desire to die here. I've no desire to even be here. That's why I want out of this place any way I can manage – and if helping you and the others achieves that ultimate goal, then I will."

Linda Merton had certainly come a long way from stalking Elza in the Sewers, Kevin thought to himself. Now she was actually proving helpful to the group. Now she was showing that she could be an asset, instead of a problematic liability. He was still musing on that thought when John nudged him. "Hey, boss?" he asked.

Kevin looked over at him. "Yeah?"

"What are we gonna do now? If we cain't get in dere, where are we gonna hole up an' get some sleep?"

"That is a very good question." Kevin said. He ran his hand through his hair. "Did you guys notice anything when you were in that alley behind the Admin Building that might help us?"

John reached up and began scratching the back of his neck. "Well," he said, "we wuz so busy fighting dem spiky dog things, an' den when we heard that thing trying to get to Sherry ... wait a minute ... yeah, dere was sumfun'. Dere was a set of doors we didn't have time ta try."

"Well, why not?" Kevin asked.

"'Cuz dey was on da wrong side of da alley," John said. He lowered his hand to look at Kevin. "You said we wanted to git inter da Admin Building. Dose doors opened into dat big warehouse on da udder side of da alley."

"So you don't know if they're locked or not."

"Nope. Anywuz, we didn't have time ta check a-forin' dem dogs woke up."

Kevin nodded. "Well ... it's something to start with. I'll admit, it's not much of a plan, but it's a plan. As soon as we're all bandaged up and finished refreshing ourselves, we'll check out that warehouse." He looked at John and shrugged. "We don't really have any other choice. This security hut is a good place to meet, but it's not very secure despite its name. You saw what was left of those Crimsons that were inside. Imagine how they did against the original guards – or other things might do to us if we decide to overnight in there? And then there's the matter of that Regent Licker thing and its pack hounds over there," he said, nodding toward the large glass windows of the Admin Building Lobby. "Too close for comfort. I want some place that's really secure to hole up before I call it a day."

John slowly nodded his head. "Gotcha, boss. I'd just as soon have stout walls an' a good door 'round me when I hafta sleep wid dem zombies about – da more walls an' doors, da better."

"And a bolthole, in case things go wrong." Kevin said. "It's always good to have a bolthole."

John thought for a moment. "We could jes' move on, ya know, an' find somewhere else ta hole up."

Kevin shook his head. "We're too tired and worn out, and we've already gotten our noses bloodied too many times in this adventure so far. We need to rest, and soon. Whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, it needs to be around here somewhere ... because we might not make it much farther if we try."

Kevin looked and sounded as serious as John had ever seen him. He was about to agree with him when the security hut door opened, and Rita stuck her head out. She was wearing her uniform blouse again, although she had not yet put back on her tie. "Okay, boys," she said, smiling. "Me and Elza are done. It's ya'll's turn now."

"Are you sure this isn't just an excuse to see us with our shirts off?" Kevin said, smirking as he did. As if in reply, Rita suddenly reached out and grabbed Kevin's ear between forefinger and thumb. He bent over as she pulled. "Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!" he cried.

"That's enough of that, Mister Ryman," Rita said, grinning. She looked at John, who was taken aback. "You want the same, or are you coming?"

"Ise comin', Miss Rita!" John said hurriedly, as he followed after them, Rita pulling Kevin by the ear, as they went inside the hut.

\------------------------------

Chapter 17 - Rethink

It was now after five o'clock in the morning. A definite hint of sunrise red could be seen to the east, in what few gaps there were between the patches of dark clouds that still hung in the sky overhead. They were not as thick as the day before, for the storm that had done its best to wash away the blood of the fallen of the RPD on the streets had finally broken up. The remnants of it were now slowly passing on eastward, leaving beneath and behind them a Raccoon City that was still firmly held in the iron grip of the Outbreak.

The survivors from the old RPD station were now somewhat rested, with their wounds from their last set of clashes with the undead tended as best as their limited supplies and the combined medical skills of both Rita and Linda would permit. They were now preparing for one final burst of activity before they would have to call it a day. It had been one hell of a night for all of them, and every one of them was tired and feeling rather sore. Even so, now was not the time to rest. They still didn't have what they would consider to be a safe place, one defensible enough to hold off any foes that might try to jump them during the day, and one that also took in the possibility of a speedy evacuation and retreat into consideration. They had thought the Factory warehouse district's Admin Building would provide that refuge, but all three of their attempts to get inside - each by a different group or person and each attempting a different point of access - had failed. The Admin Building still remained secured against them. That left only one possibility, and it was the one door in all of the other buildings in the area that they had not yet tried. It was time to investigate the oversized warehouse across the alley from the Admin Building.

Only four of the six survivors now assembled in front of the double doors to the warehouse. Both John and Sherry had been left behind in the security hut on the other side of the building. Sherry was there for her own personal safety, and John was there to protect Sherry. Kevin feared a repeat of what had happened when Sherry had accidentally almost stumbled into the nest of the Regent Licker in the Admin Building's Lobby, and that had earned Sherry her own personal injury in the fierce fracas that had been the group's failed attempt to enter the Admin Building. Sherry had also made it clear that she didn't want to be left behind with anyone except the two people she trusted the most – "Miss Elza and Uncle John," as she now called them. The prospect of leaving her alone again with Linda wasn't even brought up – a point that the attentive Linda did not fail to notice, although she said nothing about it. Not that it mattered, because in keeping with his earlier statement that Linda's special Umbrella knowledge was needed in the Factory, it was none other than Kevin who flatly stated that Linda would be in the group that would be going into the warehouse. It had the tone of an order, and Linda did not like that – but, as she reminded herself, she was the Umbrella expert. This was part of the price she now had to pay for being the most important person in the group. Both Rita and Elza rounded out Kevin's new warehouse group, and their proven combat skills might have been the rather obvious reason were it not for the wrinkle of Kevin's new relationship with Rita.

Kevin had actually planned on leaving Rita behind with John and Sherry, but she had refused. "An aide doesn't desert her superior in the thick of the fight," Rita had said, as she loaded up her gear and prepared to move out with them. "You need me to keep your head on straight, Mister Ryman. After all, where would Lee have been without Longstreet? Or Grant without Sherman? Or Patton without Bradley? Or–"

"All right, all right, I get the point," Kevin interrupted, but he was nodding and smiling. "Okay. You got me. You can go, too."

"Don't forget that I'm no weakling woman who needs protecting, you honorable young man," Rita added with a smile. "I'm a kick-ass woman, and I'd have kicked your ass if you'd refused to bring me along."

"Surprise, surprise," Linda mumbled, hoping no one would hear her. She was startled when Kevin immediately turned toward her, but his next words made it clear he hadn't.

"Miss Merton," Kevin began, "I think the time has come where we have to start trusting you again. We need your specialized knowledge of Umbrella in that warehouse, and for that we simply can't afford to lose you. And while I and Elza here," he said, nodding towards Elza, "may later regret what I'm about to do, right now the situation dictates that I do it." With that he reached into John's backpack, pulled out his spare SiG Sauer pistol and its extra ammo clip, and then handed them to Linda. "Take 'em," he said. "And please – don't shoot us in the back, okay? Leastways not until we're all out of this fix."

Linda took the gun and ammo clip from Kevin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elza tense and move her hand to her autopistol. She also saw that Kevin, Rita, and John had all noticed Elza, too. She very carefully pocketed the pistol and spare ammo clip, then just as carefully removed her hand from her pocket. Elza visibly relaxed, although her hand stayed near her autopistol. "Thank you, Officer Ryman," she said, in as sweet a tone as she could. "I appreciate your being honest about this. Let's hope I can give it back to you unused once we're done in there." She thought a moment, then added in a somewhat coy tone, "After all, with the three of you protecting me, I shouldn't have to fight – should I?"

Kevin's face was unreadable. Rita glanced away, trying to hide her disgust. John was looking at Elza, and she simply glared. Her eyes were like two red coals shining in the dark of night. If she could have killed Linda with a stare then Linda would have dropped on the spot with her head, neck, and most of her shoulders blown off. Linda simply stood there watching, with as sweet and innocent a look on her face as she could manage, while both Kevin and Rita turned and began to stare Elza down. Elza muttered a curse under her breath, then finally moved her hand away from her autopistol. Inwardly Linda let out a big sigh of relief. That particular hurdle had now finally been crossed. She had no intention of giving the gun back, of course. What she had said was meant to grease the skids so she could get a gun back in her possession. It wasn't her gun - Officer Ryman still had that - but she knew she couldn't handle her gun. She could handle the smaller SiG Sauer, though, and that suited her just fine. All the same ... there would come a time, hopefully in the near future, when she would be able to properly deal with the ever-presumptive Miss Walker ... once the right opportunity presented itself, that is.

All of that had been only a few minutes ago. Now all four of them stood in front of the double doors to the large warehouse. Nobody said anything, and nobody made a move. It was Linda who broke the ice. "What are we supposed to do now?' she asked. "Go up and knock?"

Elza shot Linda another dirty look, then walked up to the doors and pushed on them. Instantly Kevin and Rita had their guns up and at the ready, but there was no need. The door swung inward for about a foot, then back again, then back and forth until the friction of its spring-loaded hinges finally cancelled its swinging momentum, and it came back to rest again. "Son of a bitch," Elza said in a low voice. "The damn thing's been open all this time. If only we had known that--"

"Never mind," Kevin cut in. "Don't worry about it. What's done is done, so let's move on."

* * * * *

This time Kevin was the one who first opened the doors, and the others followed him in. Elza brought up the rear – and as Linda walked by on the way through the door, Elza couldn't help but feel her stomach turn at the smug smile that the Umbrella woman gave her in passing.

The group soon found themselves in a fair-sized open area, with a large room of sorts to their left and the industrial factory equivalent of a broad walkway directly ahead leading into the warehouse proper. The walls were decorated with the usual cork boards, posters, notes, printed and hand-scrawled signs, and other bric-a-brac and similar detria that is and has always been the stylistic analog of paintings, pictures, and other such wall hangings for any major industrial location. There were the usual and expected exposed pipes, cabled wiring, and conduits running to and from pieces of machinery both large and small. The room-like area to their left had a number of stacked wooden pallets, boxes, and other industrial-type objects – although it appeared that something had been at them recently. One of the stacks was partially overturned and scattered towards them, and there was a large hole torn in the sheet rock wall on the inner warehouse side of the roomlike area. From the way bits of broken sheet rock and covering paper also littered the roomlike area, it was fairly obvious that something had torn its way into there fairly recently from farther down in the warehouse. Of what it might have been there was no clue, and to where it might have gone after that there was no sign.

Kevin took in all of this at a glance. "This looks like some kind of loading area," he said. He pointed ahead to the equipment-covered areas, and to a set of metal stairs with grate-covered rungs that lead down from it to the floor. "That's an induction belt. See how that area in front of the stairs is open? They probably brought a fork in here through those doors back there and loaded freight on or off the belt from that spot. Anything that needed to be palletized they'd wheel back here," he said, pointing to the room-like area, "and then stack it up and wrap or band it. Once that was done, they could haul the whole pallet out to the loading dock on the other warehouse for shipment."

"Or it could be the other way around," Linda pointed out. "Depends on how that induction belt is set up."

Kevin nodded. "Could be," he conceded.

"What's an induction belt?" Rita asked. She honestly didn't know.

"It's a special kind of conveyor belt," Kevin said. "It's used to move freight out of a loaded truck into your unloading area or warehouse. You can also use it in reverse, or another belt in parallel, to move freight out of your loading area or warehouse and onto a waiting truck. Normally you'd use a portable skate belt, so you could extend it out into the truck itself and then adjust it for the size and type of trailer you're unloading, but the way they've got things set up here - no direct access to the loading dock, and apparently forking their cargoes in and out - means they can use a fixed induction belt."

"Fork?" Rita said, both looking and sounding confused. "Forking?"

"Forklift," Kevin said.

"Oh," Rita said, nodding her head. "How do you know so much about induction belts and so on, Kevin?" she now asked. She was genuinely impressed and did not hide it.

Kevin smiled. "I spent a lot of time both before and after the service doing part-time work in warehouses and on loading docks," he said. "They're always looking for a strong pair of extra hands, and they usually don't ask too many question about from where they came or how they got there – so long as they can do the job."

Elza was studying the equipment at the end of the area directly in front of them. It stretched off to the left until it was out of sight, hidden by the inner wall of the room-like area and what appeared to be a pair of oversized silos or pistons or something. "May I ask a dumb question?" she asked.

"No question is dumb," Kevin said. "Shoot."

"If Umbrella was inducting stuff in and out of here with this setup, like you said, then where's it all going? Or coming from? We've seen the outside of the building, and there's nothing outside at all like this. Where's the other end of this thing?"

"Underground," Linda said flatly. "I thought that would be obvious."

"Oh," Elza said, feigning surprise and adding a bit of an edge to her voice, "but of course."

"So this is the system that feeds supplies to Umbrella's secret underground Lab," Rita said. "No wonder they hid it inside a warehouse. That way, nobody could see it."

"They'd have to," Elza pointed out, "as big as this setup is."

"Don't forget, this is only one access point," Linda said. "Remember, there are multiple labs as well as multiple entry and exit points, and most of those access points have a specific purpose or use."

"Well, couldn't we just find the topside end of this thing and get down to the Lab that way?" Elza asked.

"No," Linda said. "It would have security features designed to prevent direct access down below for just that reason. Shock probes, spring-out razor wire meshes, you know – real Indiana Jones or James Bond stuff." She then looked at Elza strangely. "Why do you want to go down in the Lab?" she asked.

Elza shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, no reason in particular. I was just thinking, though, that if this is a freight induction system for that Lab, then there's got to be a regular access point for normal people around here somewhere, too – probably fairly close. And if we could find it ... well ... it might make for a good bolthole, in case things go south up here. Lay low down there until things quiet down and all, then come back up and move on."

Linda shook her head. "Remember what I said earlier about this being the focus of the Outbreak and not its eye, Miss Walker? I used to work in one of those labs, you know. There are probably all kinds of secret experiments and research going on down below with all manner of test subjects for a variety of purposes. You've seen the results of one of those experiments gone horribly wrong – it's all around us. And with four days with nobody to tend them or take care of them, well ... I get the chills thinking what might be running around loose down there."

Elza pursed her lips. "All right, I'll give you that. But everything gets hungry sometime. I'm willing to bet that a lot of those things have already moved topside in search of food. After all, it's been four days, like you said. And sometimes the safest place to be in a situation like this is in the worst possible place you can imagine, because that's the last place anyone or anything would expect you to be."

It was at this point that Kevin held up a hand. "Okay, Miss Walker, you've made your point. And I'm not entirely indifferent to your point-of-view either, Miss Merton. But let's not forget what we came in here to do, okay? Time to get a move on. If you wouldn't mind following, I'll lead the way." And with that, SPAS-12 held in a walking carry, he began to move toward the metal stairs connected to the induction belt before him.

* * * * *

John and Sherry were seated in two of the chairs that had been in the security hut. John was keeping watch both on the hut's door and through the windows, while Sherry sat looking thoughtful. She hadn't said anything since the others had left, and neither had John – but it was Sherry who finally broke the silence. "Uncle John?"

John looked over at her. "Yeah, baby – whazzup?" he said in a surprisingly kind voice.

Sherry now looked troubled. "I think I made a mistake, Uncle John. A big one. And because I did ... " and at this tears began to form in her eyes, " ... I don't think Mom and Dad know where I am."

John rolled his chair over beside her, took his shotgun in one hand, and put a comforting arm around her. "I doan see how, Sherry. You went to da police station lak your mom said, right?"

"But they didn't know I was coming, remember?" Sherry said. "Chief Clemons said Mom had never called! And nobody else knew I was supposed to be there!"

"Yeah, dat is kinda strange," John said. "I was locked up downstairs, so I gotta take yers and ever'one's else's word fer it. I knowed, dough, if I'd-a sent mah bruddah's kids sommers, I sure as hell woudda made sure dey gots dere. An' I wouldda kep' callin' until Ise sure dey wuz dere, too."

"Yeah," Sherry said. She now looked straight into John's eyes, and the tears started to flow. "Uncle John? I think ... I think I went to the wrong police station!" And with that she fell into his lap and cried.

John managed to somehow lean his shotgun up against the nearby wall, so it would remain within easy reach. He then put both arms around Sherry and began to hug the sobbing little girl. "Dere, dere, now ... it's all right, baby. Ever'one makes mistakes. Gawd knows I've made sum loo-loos already."

"But-but Mom and Dad can't find me now!" Sherry cried, as she buried her head even deeper into John's lap.

John didn't respond right away. Instead, he lifted up one hand and began to pat and massage one of Sherry's shoulders in the most comforting fashion he could, while he let the little girl cry. With the other, he reached up and began scratching the back of his neck. He thought for a while, then stopped scratching his neck and spoke as softly and gently as he could. "Hey, Sherry? Didn't ya know dere was two police stayshuns?"

"Uh-uh," came the muffled response from John's lap, punctuated by sobs. "I haven't been to Raccoon City very much, and don't know a lot about it. An' I didn't know there was two until I got to the old one, and I heard everyone talking about two, and then Officer Ryman and Miss Rita showed up, and they said they had come from the other station!" And with that her crying resumed.

"Well, dere ya go," John said kindly. The big man now lowered his arms and put them around her in a comforting hug. "Lots of people still doan know dere is two of 'em now, 'cuz it hain't been dat long since dat new Umbrella flunkie police chief bought dat old art museum ta use as a new stayshun house. Hell, Mayor Warren still hain't had da city update all of da maps an' signs ever'where, lak on the street stands an' such. It wuz gonna cost too much money, or so I heerd."

Sherry suddenly looked up. "When my guards got killed an' I was all alone," she said, still sobbing a bit as she spoke, "I didn't know what to do or where to go. I remembered from school that if you ever get lost in a city and can't find a police officer, you're to look for a public building or information stand. I found a bus stop that had an information board beside it, and I checked the map that was there. That's how I found the way to the old station."

"Well, there's your problem!" John grinned, and hugged Sherry tight. "See? It weren't your fault! It was da fault of Mayor Warren or one of his stoopid city boorecatz for not updating da public maps! If deys had, you wudda gone to da right police station! It weren't your fault! Now doan you feel better 'bout all dat, Sherry?"

Sherry now laughed, still crying and half-sobbing as she did. "I'm glad I did, though. 'Cause if I hadn't, I wouldn't have met you or Miss Elza."

John hugged her tight again. "An' we're sure is glad we met you, little missy. Youse is a special little girl."

Sherry looked down, blushing. Her tears had dried, and her sobs had now gone. She sat silent for a moment, then looked up again. "Uncle John?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"Do you think there's any chance my parents will find me, or that we can somehow hook up with them?"

John let go of Sherry and leaned back in his chair. He began scratching the back of his neck again. "Well ... I flat out doan know, Sherry. I woan lie to ya. But I can tell you dis," and with that he leaned forward again, bringing both arms down and placing both hands on Sherry's shoulders. "Dere's been all kinds of wars, and nach'ral disasters an' such, where kids got split up from deir parents an' found each udder again afterwards. Dere's nuthin' dat says you cain't do the same. Best thing you can do rite now is not think about it, an' jes' try ta survive wid da rest of us. Okay?"

Sherry nodded. "Okay, Uncle John. But if the chance comes for me to do the right thing, and go where I was supposed to go, I'm gonna do it."

John wrinkled his brows at her. "Now why in the worl' wud you wanna do dat, hon? It's been four days since yer momma told ya ta go to da new police station. Dey probably woan be lookin' fer ya anymore, what wid how bad da Outbreak's gotten an' all. It's purdy much ever man for hisself, now." He smiled at her, and spoke softly but firmly. "All you'd be doin' 'uld be settin' yerself up fer anuddah worl' of hurt."

"Maybe," Sherry said. "But if there's one thing I've learned from you and Miss Elza, it's to always try to do the right thing no matter what. And I did the wrong thing, even though it may not have been my fault." She looked at John, and said. "If Mom and Dad are still looking for me, that's where I should have been ... and maybe still need to be, if they're gonna find me."

Now it was John's turn to look down. It took him a while before he spoke. "It's a long way back fer a little girl in da middle of da Outbreak, ya know. An' youse gots ta cross back over da river, too." He looked up at her. "Are you sayin' dat yer fixin' to leave us, Sherry?"

"Oh no – of course not!" Sherry said hurriedly – and with that, all trace of her previous crying jag left her. She put her arms around John's thick neck and hugged him. "Like you said, that was four days ago – and they may not even be looking for me anymore." She leaned back so she could look at him, and smiled her biggest smile. "What I'm sayin', Uncle John, is that if there's any way I can set things right, and get in touch with my parents so they'll know where I am, I'm gonna do it. Right now, though, the bestest and safest place to be in th' whole world is with Miss Elza ... and you."

With that she hugged John again – and a teary-eyed John hugged her back in reply.

* * * * *

"I hope nobody turns this thing on," Linda grumbled as they walked down the induction belt.

"I don't know," Elza joked. "It might be kinda exciting. Like being in a cartoon, or one of those comedy movies or something."

Linda glared at her. "How can you even think of something like that at a time like this?"

"Because I'm still human," Elza promptly shot back, "and I still have a sense of humor."

"Okay, ladies," came Kevin's warning from ahead of them. "Settle down now." They quit talking, but Elza continued to smile while Linda continued to glare.

They were having to walk on top of the induction belts - for there were two of them, just as Kevin had predicted - because there simply wasn't any other way to get deeper inside the warehouse. Whatever had knocked down the stack of pallets and torn the hole in the wall in the pallet storage area had apparently been having a field day inside the warehouse proper. There were ripped out vents, torn bundles of wiring and cables, smashed machinery, and scattered freight everywhere. They were having to pick or crawl their way around what was left on the induction belt, because it looked like it had been stopped in mid-processing operation whenever whatever it was had started to trash the joint. So far they had made it halfway down the belt without anyone or anything to challenge them.

The belt they were on ended at a large vertical induction cylinder that ran almost to the top of the building. There was another one right beside it, and that was where the second belt that had started running parallel to theirs a little while ago seemed to originate - or perhaps feed, depending on how the belts were supposed to work. Fortunately, there was a short catwalk across the belts on which they could walk to move from one to the other, and it appeared to have been put there for that very purpose.

They stopped on the catwalk to look around. "What do you think did all of this damage?" Rita asked. "Could it have been one of those hunter things?"

"I dunno," Kevin said thoughtfully. "Linda, you're the expert. What do you say?"

"Not a hunter," Linda said after a moment. "The pattern of damage is too random. Hunters always move with purpose, whether it be one of their own or one that Umbrella gives them. This looks more like something that a bull in a china shop would do."

"Maybe it all happened during the first night of the Outbreak, when almost everything else went to hell," Elza ventured.

"Maybe," Linda said, "but I doubt it." She pointed to one of the larger pieces of machinery that had the appearance of some mechanical creature that had been split open and eviscerated. "You're gonna tell me the average pack of zombies did that kind of damage? I don't think so."

"Then what?" Rita queried.

"I honestly don't know," Linda said. "Now back at the Chicago labs, we had some test and experimental subjects that could have both done that and been completely random and purposeless in their carnage, like what we see here. The arachnoid, for one."

"What's an arachnoid?" Elza asked.

Linda gave Elza a cool look. "You don't want to know. Trust me. And you better hope none are on the loose in all of this, because you're gonna have one helluva fight on your hands if you do."

"We'll take your word for it," Kevin interrupted, cutting off Elza before she could snap off a hot retort. Elza gave him a stare but said nothing. "I've got a question, Linda," Kevin continued. "Know any way to get to that catwalk up there that I'm missin'? 'Cause I sure don't see one."

Everyone looked to where he was pointing. There was a wide catwalk that appeared to run the length of the building. It turned and dead-ended not far from the two tall vertical induction cylinders, but the other end had two doors. One was in the main wall not far from the catwalk's end, while the other was centered on that end of the catwalk where it ran up against the side wall.

Elza smiled. "Well, I'll be. That one door near the end opens onto that catwalk over the back alley, or I'm Mother Goose." She grinned. "And I'll bet it provides a straight-on shot at that Regent Licker thing that almost got Sherry. I've love to settle that particular score for her sake."

"We're not here to provoke fights," Kevin admonished, "but I see your point. If we could use it to knock out that Regent Licker, then we could get into the back offices of the Admin Building – and just maybe have a decent place to hole up after all. The real trick is going to be getting up there, and I don't see us doing that from here without a rope and grapple." He gave his trademark wry smile. "Anybody seen a rope and grapple lying around anywhere?"

"Ha-ha, real funny," Rita said evenly, although her eyes were twinkling and a smile was dancing around the edge of her lips. "I'll bet you get up through that other door." She looked at it again, and then did a double take. "Hey, guys? I just realized something. This --" and with that she waved her arms around, as to take in all that they saw, "-- is only half of the warehouse. If that door is the one you think it is, Elza, then all we're seeing is only half of this setup. We've still got a whole half-a-warehouse to explore."

"Oh, great," Linda groaned.

Rita ignored her. "Maybe there's some stairs or a lift or something on the other side that we can use to get up. What do you say, Kevin?"

Kevin nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Elza?"

Elza also nodded. "I'd say Rita's right on the money. No complaints from me."

"Linda?"

Linda rolled her eyes at Kevin and waved a hand on down the belt. "Let's just go and get it over with – okay?"

It took them another ten minutes or so to pick their way down the second induction belt. When they finally reached its end, there was another vertical induction tube and a grated mesh platform extending off to the belt's right. On the platform was a control console. A set of metal stairs matching the ones at the end of the other belt led back down to floor level. To the left of the stairs was a power cabinet with various cables and conduits leading to and from it, and a large stack of crates sitting in the corner. The wall directly across from and parallel to the end of the induction belt they now knew to be a dividing wall splitting the warehouse in half, but there was no window or any other kind of opening to reveal what might be on the other side. In fact, a second shorter wall placed at the extreme edge of the induction belt and a ceiling of normal height connecting it with the wall behind it completely hid the other end of the area from view.

"If there's a way through, it's gonna be down there," Elza said.

"Yeah," Kevin agreed. He was looking over the control console on the platform. "This looks like it runs the belts," he said, "but the lockdown key is missing. Won't run without it. Not that it could probably run now anyway," he said, grimacing as he looked back across the wreckage-strewn half of the warehouse he and the others had just finished traversing.

Rita was with Kevin at the control console, and now Elza came over to join them. They only half-noticed as Linda went down the stairs. She had taken only a few paces into the ceiling-covered area, however, when she suddenly froze. She looked as if all of the blood had drained out of her face in a manner of seconds. Her eyes were open wide, and her jaw worked but her mouth made no sound.

Elza was the first to notice this abrupt change in Linda's behavior, and she nudged the others. "Hey, wh--" she started to say, but Linda shook her head violently, as if telling her to shut the hell up. Fear was written all over her face, and seemed to ooze from every pore in her body.

"What is it?" Rita whispered, as she and Kevin pulled their guns up to the ready. Elza had already done so, and stood at the ready behind them.

Linda finally managed to speak. Her voice was very quiet ... and very scared. "I ... I ... I think ... I found ... what wrecked ... the warehouse ... and ... it's ... still ... here! Right ... in ... front ... of ... me!"

At that, there was a snuffling growl such as none of them had yet heard during their Outbreak adventure, and yet – and yet it sounded familiar. It was as if they had heard it before, at some distant place and time, but couldn't remember when or where. It was so familiar – and whatever it was in each of their subconscious minds that recognized it for what it was, it made the other three break out in a cold sweat. There was no such doubt with Linda, though. It was there ... right there in front of her, less than a dozen feet away ... and it was giving her quite the angry stare.

"What is it?" Rita hissed.

"G ... g .... go ... gor ... gor ... illa ...!" Linda finally managed to stammer. "In ...fect ... ed ... gorilla!!"

* * * * *

Everyone was standing stock still – the three up on the platform by the induction belt, and the woman down on the floor at the nearby open end of the hallway that ran across the center of the warehouse. The other end was concealed by built-up walls and ceiling, and it was in here that the gorilla - the infected gorilla, the very much loose and infected gorilla - was located. Elza, Kevin, and Rita, who were the three up on the platform, could but watch as the sweat literally popped out on Linda's brow below, and as her whole body shook. Elza didn't recall seeing Linda being this scared since the attack of the two zombies during her bathroom break in that first Sewers L-tunnel.

"Now listen to me, Linda," she hissed, as loud as she could but trying to keep the tone of her voice calm and level. "Don't you go pissing on yourself right now. Got it?"

"Too ... scared ...! " Linda said. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were wide as she continued to stare at the infected gorilla directly in front of her.

"And quit hyperventilating," Rita added. "You're only going to make yourself pass out."

For its part, the gorilla was doing nothing but staring back and making the occasional grunting noise. The others couldn't see that due to the walls and ceiling blocking their view; however, they could hear it, and knew Linda wasn't trying to pull some kind of trick. They wouldn't have put it past her, given the way she had acted before, but this was very real – and Linda was now in direct mortal danger of her life.

"I'm open to suggestions, if anyone's got any," Kevin said quietly. "Elza? Rita?"

"I ... have one ...." Linda said. "Get ... me ... outta ... here ...!" The gorilla snuffled – a little louder, and a little longer this time, but remained in its makeshift cubbyhole where only Linda could see it.

"It hasn't attacked," Elza said quietly, thinking fast, "and it may have been asleep or resting, judging where it is right now. We probably woke it up when we came close."

"So ... how ... do we ... put it ... back ... to ... sleep?!" Linda's last words came out in almost a high-pitched squeal, and the gorilla growled loudly.

Elza looked at the others, speaking low and fast. "We're lucky we caught it like this. That gives us a better chance than we might have had otherwise. Still, we've apparently got to go through it to get to the other side of the warehouse, and we've got to do it without getting Linda killed in the process. Kevin, how many flash-bangs do you have left?"

"Only one," Kevin said. "You?"

"The same," Elza answered. "What do you think?"

"Risky," Kevin said. "We don't have a clear shot at that thing, and it'll still have a good chance of nailing Linda all the same."

"I got a better idea, guys," Rita said. "You two ever see Gorillas in the Mist?" Both Kevin and Elza shook their heads. "The movie was about a gorilla expert. I won't waste time with the whole story, but according to the movie gorillas don't tend to be aggressive. They only get that way whenever something stirs them up."

"This one's infected," Elza pointed out. "I'd say that's plenty enough to stir up anything."

"Yes, but it hasn't attacked yet, and it could have done so at any time from when we entered the warehouse to right now," Rita pointed out. "That means it's probably tired or has been resting. It might be infected, but remember – it's just an animal. We've got to treat it like one."

Elza slowly nodded. "That may be true. Then again, we're probably intruding on what it now considers to be its territory."

"Even so, if Linda can manage to talk calmly, and slowly back away, she might be able to get off scot free," Rita said. "If it attacks, she should drop and play dead. It might hit or kick her, and it might even bite her, but it'll probably leave her alone if she can maintain the ruse."

"That's for a normal gorilla, if that's true," Kevin pointed out. "And the last thing we want is for that thing to bite Linda. We've got no way to treat anyone who's infected other than those herbs, and the best they can do is hold the infection in check."

"I know," Rita said, "but I can't think of any other way short of attacking it – and you know how that's going to turn out."

Kevin nodded. "Yeah." He looked at Elza. "What does the hunter in you say, Elza?"

"Rita's plan is Linda's best chance," she responded immediately. She too nodded. "Let's do it." She now turned toward Linda, talking as loudly as she dared, yet as softly as she could manage. "Start talking nice to it, Linda – as sweet as you can. Once you see it isn't reacting, I want you to start backing up towards the platform as slow as you can. No threatening moves, and don't make your voice squeak like its been doing. Got it?"

"What ... am I ... supposed ... to ... say?!" Linda squeaked. "Here, kitty, kitty?!?!"

"Anything!" Kevin urged, trying to keep his voice low. "It sees you. It doesn't see us. You've got to be the one to talk to it. Got it?"

Linda nodded her head. She was still shaking like a leaf. "Nice ... gorilla ..." she stammered, her voice still quavering and pitched several notes too high for her own good. "Good ... gorilla ... You ... just ... go back to sleep ... okay?" There was a animal rumble from down at the end of the short hallway, but nothing else. Linda dared a step backward. "I'm sorry ... we bothered you ..." she continued. "I'll just go away ... now ... okay?" She took another slow step back. This time the grunting rumble was louder, and there was the sound of stirring at the end of the hallway. "No, no, you don't have to get up," Linda said hurriedly, transmitting fear with every word. "Just ... let me go ... okay? I didn't mean ... to bother you. I'll just ... be going ... now." She took another step back. Two more and she would be out of sight of the gorilla. "See?" she half squealed. "Like ... I said. Good gorilla ... nice ... gorilla." She took another step back.

Suddenly there was a grunt and more animal rumblings, and then there was the sound of something very big moving down the hallway. A silverback male gorilla that had to have been at least four times as big as Linda ambled into view, walking on its knuckles and hind legs in the manner common to most of the apes. It was obviously infected, for there were open sores and wounds breaking up the pattern of its fur that was consistent with human victims of the Outbreak. It half-circled Linda, then suddenly turned and circled back, looking her over, snorting and sniffing at her the whole while. By chance, the way that it circled her meant that it had its back to the open part of the hallway on that end of the warehouse – and this, combined with the fact that the three humans up on the induction belt side platform were standing rock-solid still, meant that it failed to notice the others nearby. It got practically right in Linda's face, sniffing at her and making muffled burping noises now and again. Linda's eyes were by now closed tight, and she looked as if she was about ten seconds away from either hitting the floor or pissing on herself again. It was anyone's guess as to which it was going to be. The gorilla suddenly snapped its head around, and looked directly at the three humans on the platform. It bared its teeth and hissed, then let out a large roar just inches away from Linda's face. That decided the matter. There was a loud thump! as Linda's now-unconscious body hit the floor. She had passed out.

The unconscious Linda Merton was never aware of the fierce fight that raged near her on the northern end of the warehouse between the three armed humans and that infected gorilla. Afterwards, whenever she would recall the event, Elza would have this to say about it.

It was almost as bad as when I fought that lone hunter in the RPD Parking Garage. That hunter was a lot smarter and more cunning, and came closer to killing me than that gorilla ever did the three of us. Still, the gorilla had more brute strength on its side, plus the ability to leap up and swing from the ceiling beams. Believe me when I say that too was a fight I'm glad I've never had to repeat again. I think Kevin and Rita would tell you the same, too, if you asked them.

* * * * *

"Hey, Linda?"

Linda slowly became aware of someone gently slapping her face. Her eyes opened, and the slapping stopped at once. It was Rita. She now reached to one side and brought up a water bottle. "Take this. You had quite a scare there."

Linda took the water bottle and gulped a few swings. She then sat up, with Rita helping her. She was still on the floor where she had fainted. Neither Kevin or Elza, nor that brute of a gorilla, were anywhere in sight. "Where is everyone?" she asked. "And what happened to that thing?"

"The gorilla's dead," Rita said. "We killed it. We had to. Once it saw us with our guns out, I guess it thought it was back in Africa, and we were poachers or something. Or maybe it was its infected brain kicking in or something, overriding its natural curiosity about you. I don't know. Anyway, it went all-out after us, and we didn't have any choice but to defend ourselves the best we could. We had a helluva fight there for a while, but rest assured that it's quite dead."

"Good." Linda thought for a moment, then with a start reached out and felt around where she was sitting. Rita laughed gently as she watched her. "Don't worry, Linda. You didn't do it. That floor's dry as a bone. In fact, you were very brave. There aren't too many people who would have tried to talk down a gorilla like you did. By the way, any idea where it came from?"

"Probably one of the underground labs," Linda said, looking relieved. "Or it might have been in the process of being inducted down there, and somehow got out of its cage during the Outbreak. Who knows?" She sighed. "I thought Umbrella stopped using gorillas for original research whenever the first Tyrant program went south a few years back. I guess I was wrong – no, I know I was wrong now."

"What's a Tyrant?" Rita asked, then smiled when she saw the look on Linda's face. "Let me guess. Another one of those things the rest of us are better off either not knowing about or running into, like that arachnoid thing you mentioned earlier."

Linda nodded. "I'll tell you this much, Rita – Officer Burnside, since this should probably go on the record. Umbrella - my employers - are very heavy into bio-organic weapons research, or BOWs as we called them. They've been experimenting with all kinds of animals, and with a few human volunteers, in order to create the perfect programmable killing machine. Those hunters we encountered back at the RPD were one of the more successful products of that program. Those mutated dogs are a known and considered useful offshoot of that program, although those weird ones Elza and John fought in the alley aren't in the official Umbrella files to which I had access."

"And those licker things, too?"

Linda nodded. "Those too. Every one of the infected and other T-virus bred mutants has its place in Umbrella's ultimate BOW scheme – and the Tyrant, as befits its name, sits at the top of that scheme."

They were interrupted by the sound of approaching footfalls. Kevin poked his head through a doorway at the far end of the hallway. It had once contained a sliding door, but that had been half-ripped off of its tracks and was now stuck in place. Only the doorway's smaller size relative to the much larger gorilla had kept it from passing through. It was open enough to let a normal human squeeze through it, though, and that is what Kevin and Elza had apparently done. "Hey, Rita," Kevin said, grinning. "Elza's got that lift in here working. Oh, hello Linda. Feeling better?"

"Somewhat," Linda said, as Rita helped her to her feet.

"Good," Kevin said. "Now if you ladies don't mind joining us, I think it's high time we finished our little tour of this warehouse."

After the fight with the infected gorilla was over, and Rita was left behind to tend to the unconscious Linda, Kevin and Elza had gone on ahead to explore the rest of the warehouse. The wrecked door at the far end of the hallway had connected to a small control room that apparently was for the induction belt machinery. The door at the end had opened automatically as Kevin and Elza approached – and then automatically closed just as soon as Kevin had passed through, leaving him cut off from Elza back in the control room. Some quick searching had revealed an electric eye along the baseboard in the control room that triggered the door from in there. It was apparently the only one, as there was no mate in the other half of the warehouse beyond. There was a small table near the door on which sat a computer or computer terminal. It might have been used to open the door via a password or pass key, but they had no idea what it might be or where to find it. After some experimenting, Elza was eventually able to lay down and position one of the rolling chairs in the control room so that its back blocked the electric eye in there. This kept the second door open, giving the both of them a quick way back out if need be.

The other half of the large warehouse had turned out to be a regular polyglot of machinery, computer equipment, and various pieces of freight both palletized and in large crates and boxes. That the area had been converted from something else seemed obvious, judging from the oversized rootop crane that ran along rails attached to the long side rafters and beams of the warehouse. The rails for the overhead crane appeared to run the length of the building, and they could see where the walls for the center hallway and control room that separated each half of the building had been built around them – as if they had already existed before the separating wall were built. Neither Kevin nor Elza had any idea what the overhead crane might be used for now, nor did it really matter. They were more interested in the side balcony. As they had earlier guessed, it ran the full length of the building. It continued from the door that connected it with its other half in the other side of the warehouse, then ran all the way around and partway down the building's far end. At the near door end was an opening in the side balcony itself with a powered loading lift one could ride up, but unfortunately the lift was all the way up. A quick examination of the lift controls where the lift came down revealed that it was locked down, and its master control key was missing. This rendered the lift useless in its present state.

As it so happened, there was an open gate in the upper catwalk guardrail at its far end, where the catwalk itself dead-ended against the wall and where several fair-sized crates had been stacked. The open gate was not blocked by the stacked crates; however, it was just as high up and out of reach as the loading lift. It was that gated opening, though, that finally allowed the survivors access to the catwalk. After studying the problem for a minute, Kevin had suggested that he boost Elza up to the top of the power control cabinets along the far wall. After that, she could make her way around on top of them to the gated gap in the guardrail. Once there, she could then climb up and onto the catwalk though the gap in the guardrail, and then follow the catwalk back around in order to get to the lift. Elza agreed – and once she was up and on the catwalk, and had trotted back around to the loading lift, she found that the missing control key was present in the catwalk lift control panel up there. She turned the key in order to turn on the lift, then lowered it so Kevin could come up and join her. There had been a quick popping-through of the far door to confirm their initial guesses about the upper catwalk as a whole, and then Kevin had gone back down to fetch Rita and Linda while Elza stayed behind to keep an eye on the lift.

The four of them were now gathered together again back in the side of the warehouse where they had come in, only now they were up on the catwalk and not down on the working floor. There was a wide extension on that end of the catwalk not far from the twin induction cylinders going to and coming from the Underground Lab, and this is where they were now gathered to plan their next move. Before doing so, however, Rita had taken Linda to the handrail and pointed out the body of the dead gorilla splayed out on one section of the induction belts below. Linda shivered, but said nothing. After that, it had been time to plan.

"I see only one way out of here other than those double doors below," Elza was pointing out, "and that's the catwalk door to the Admin Building Lobby. And you know what's waiting for us in there."

"Yeah," Kevin said grimly. "That Regent Licker thingy, or whatever. Like I said, though – I don't want to provoke any battles unless we have to." He paused for a moment, looking at all of them. "That fight with that gorilla took a fair-sized chunk out of all of our ammo, you know."

"There might be more in those police cars parked out in front of the Admin Building," Rita suggested. "If there was more in Darcy's wrecked squad car out by the street, then they might have more, too."

Kevin nodded. "All right. Good suggestion. We'll check it out as soon as we're through in here and back down there. In the meantime, back to the subject at hand. There's only two ways in and out of here, and we know where they both go. We also know what's waiting for us beyond the only one of the two ways we haven't yet tried, and that's because of our earlier fight with it. Suggestions?"

No one spoke as all of them mused on the problem. "It's too bad we can't call it a day in here," Linda finally said. "At least there's nothing lurking around in here anymore to surprise us."

"I thought of that," Kevin said. "The two doors are too far apart and it's too convoluted a path between them to my liking. Admitted, there are a lot of great places to hide in here – but all retreat options suck for the same reason. Too much stuff to block easy access. And if we ever lose power, then there goes our bolthole via the upstairs balcony."

"Yeah," Elza said. "I've been meaning to ask about that. How come the Factory here and parts of the Sewers down below have power, while the rest of Raccoon City doesn't? I mean, the main power station blew up yesterday afternoon. I heard it go and saw the fireball from the University, just like everyone else did. So why is there power here?"

"Umbrella has its own power source," Linda said. "Directly below our feet in the central core shaft for the Lab is a 200 megawatt water-cooled nuclear reactor. According to the files I read, it's a type C1G - almost the same kind that the U.S. Navy first used on its older cruisers, like the U.S.S. Long Beach, but somewhat updated and modified for land use."

Kevin whistled. "Damn. That's a big reactor for what amounts to a glorified research lab. You could run all of Umbrella's stuff off of that and Raccoon City to boot, with plenty to spare for the surrounding countryside."

"They were probably planning ahead," Linda nodded, "and they chose the Navy design both for safety reasons and the availability of a local water source – the nearby river. Umbrella had it installed in secret back when they were building the Underground Lab during the Cold War. The Lab circuits are completely isolated and feed off of it alone, but all Umbrella facilities in the area are connected to it for emergency purposes. If local area main power were ever lost for any reason, like with the Outbreak right now, all they have to do is simply switch over to the emergency feeder circuits from the Lab reactor. Voila, power restored."

Elza nodded. "You know we'd all be Post Toasties if that thing went up, too."

"Not necessarily," Kevin said. "It would be more like Chernobyl, or even that little SL-1 test reactor that blew up here in the States a few decades ago and that almost nobody's heard about. The explosion wouldn't be that bad – but all the radiation that would blow out, and the fallout and stuff, that would be the worst. We might live for a while, if we weren't in the direct blast, but getting exposed to that much radiation would do us all in soon enough."

Rita gave Kevin a curious look. "How do you know so much about nuclear reactors?"

Kevin smiled. "I was born in a military hospital just outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico – where the government tested its first A-bomb back during World War II." He chuckled. "Kinda comes with the territory, and I was a curious soul as a youth." He let out a deep breath. "Anyway, back on subject. How do we deal with that Regent Licker in the Admin Building Lobby, on the other end of that catwalk to which that door over there opens?"

There was another pause, and then Elza spoke. "Well, Kevin, there's really only one thing we can do. Go in guns blazing, hit it immediately with our hardest weapons, and hope for the best." She smiled. "This time, though, we'll have the advantage of higher ground and more room in which to maneuver – two things that poor Sherry did not have when she tried to go in there through that ground vent."

"She didn't have a gun, either." Linda pointed out.

Elza looked directly at her. "We could give her yours."

"All right," Kevin said, cutting Linda off before she could make her own retort. "That's enough of that. Anyway, I don't see any other option myself. The only other way in there is through that transom window up front, and that's not the most ideal way to get inside. I'd hate to have somebody on my back lifting them up to that thing and some of those licker things, or even some regular zombies, decide to show up and crash the party."

Linda looked sidewise at Elza. "Oh, I'm sure Miss Walker here wouldn't mind the risk."

"I said enough," Kevin said. There was enough of a menacing tone in his voice that Linda looked away. He then turned his gaze to Elza, who held it and returned it without flinching. "Let's not start all that again. Understand?"

"A question, if I may," Elza said evenly.

"Shoot," Kevin replied.

"Who's gonna be first through that door?"

\-------------------------

Chapter 18 - Regicide

"Mr. Kendo! Here comes another one!" Sherry whispered.

John Kendo and Sherry Birkin, hiding as best as they could, watched as another licker appeared from over the roof of the Admin Building. This was the fourth licker they had seen come over the roof since the muffled gunfire and animal roars behind the building had died down. It was one of the big ones, too – a stage five licker, if Miss Linda's description had been right. It was bigger and more muscled than the lickers they had first encountered in the Sewers and had longer claws, although it still had the same sick-looking inside-out pinkish-red skin and a head that looked like it was wearing its brain outside of its skull. It came vertically down the outside wall of the Admin Building like a spider, making the same peculiar asthmatic-like breathing noise that the others had, and occasionally stopping to turn its head and look around – if "look" was what you called a thing that didn't appear to have any eyes seemed to be doing. It took a few minutes, and then it had reached the open transom window high above and to the north of the locked Lobby doors. It scampered inside, got into a bit of a hissing fit with the other three lickers already in there - two stage fours and another stage five - then apparently found its appointed place and sat on its haunches, staring up at that part of the inside wall above the windows over the Lobby doors that John and Sherry couldn't see. The sound it was making also changed, just like it had done with the other three. Up there, as Sherry had seen and John now knew, was the Regent Licker. The newest member of the group of lickers now seemed to sway a bit back and forth as its raspy breathing evened out to almost a soft crooning noise – sort of a cross between a cat purring contentedly and the teeth of a large handsaw being dragged across a round file. In fact, all four of them were doing it, looking for all the world like a pack of four hounds baying at the moon, save that the sounds they were each making were definitely not those of baying hounds.

Sherry gave John a worried look. "What are they doing, Uncle John?"

"Beats da hell outta me," John automatically replied, looking just as amazed as Sherry. He then realized what he had just said. "Sorry, babe. I shouldn'a talk like dat to ya."

"That's okay," Sherry said. "Mom says dirty words all the time whenever she's mad, especially whenever Dad's not around. I've kinda gotten used to it."

"Well, people aren't s'pposed ta talk dat way," John said quietly, still watching the lickers, "'specially ta nice little girls like youse. Dat's whut Miss Rita says, and she's gotten on'ta me 'bout it alredah. Ise sorry, Sherry, and Ise try not ta do it again."

"Thank you," Sherry said. "I won't tell her."

John grinned. "Thanks."

Sherry turned back to the window and started watching the lickers again. "What do you think happened to the others?"

"Well, dey ain't called, so I dunno," John said. "Dat cud mean anything, dough. I mean—"

With that, the radio Elza had loaned him suddenly chirped. He pulled it from his front pocket and then gave a worried look across the parking lot at the lickers in the Lobby. They apparently hadn't noticed or didn't care, and were still engaging in their bizzare behavior. He keyed the mike and whispered loudly. "John here. Keep it low. Dey is lickers nearby."

"Lickers?" Kevin's voice quietly exclaimed over the radio. "How many?"

"Four so fer," John said, still using the same loud whisper as before. "Deys started comin' after you guys stopped shootin'. Deys been cumin' purty reg'lar 'bout ever few minutes or so."

"Shit," Kevin exclaimed. He then added in a more calm tone, "Have any of 'em spotted you guys?"

"No! Ever one of 'um's cum over da roof, den climbed down da building and went in th' Lobby threw dat open high winder. An' after dat, deyse gather below dat Reggie Licker thing an' cummenses ta singin'."

"Singing?!"

"I doan know what else ta call it, boss. Dey jes' sit dere lak a dog beggin' and make dis funny weird sound lak somebody runnin' steel wool across a runnin' grindah. I can't figger it out."

"Let me talk to him," Linda's voice faintly sounded over the radio's speaker. There were some odd sounds that came from John's radio, and then Linda's voice sounded again. It was much louder than before, although she was speaking as softly as Kevin had done. "You say they're singing?"

"Dat's whut I'd call it."

"And you say that all of them are looking up at the Regent Licker?"

"Yes'm."

"How would you describe their expressions? I know it's going to be hard the way they look, Mr. Kendo, but what would they look like to you if they were human?"

John started to lift his other hand to his neck, and then realized he was still holding the shotgun with it. He contented himself instead with scratching under his nose with the foreknuckle of the hand holding the radio, while looking out the window and across the parking lot at the assembled lickers in the Lobby. "I doan know, Miss Murdon. Dis is gonna soun' crazy, but Ise sweah dey is prayin' ta it."

"You may be more right than you know, Mr. Kendo. Thank you. Officer Ryman?" There were the funny sounds again, and then Kevin was speaking again in the same low voice as before. "John, is there any way for you to leave the hut and get back through that gate without being spotted?"

John looked at the security hut door. That side of the hut faced and was directly across the parking lot from the south end of the short "T" of the Admin Building, where the Lobby was located. "No, boss," he admitted. "No chanse."

"All right." Kevin's voice was calm and even. "Stay where you are and lay low. We're gonna try something on our end. We'll get back to you if we can. If I'm not back in touch with you in fifteen minutes, you and Sherry get the hell outta there as best you can. Kevin, out."

John carefully pocketed Elza's radio again, doing his best to keep all motion below the line of the window so the lickers wouldn't see it. As he finished, Sherry spoke. "Officer Ryman said some bad words, Uncle John."

"Yeah," John said. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Sherry said. "I forgive you. An' it's okay if any of you do it again." A serene, almost mature expression crossed Sherry's face. "Some grown-ups just can't help themselves." John's eyebrows shot up at that remark, but before he could reply he saw Sherry's eyes open wide. "Uncle John!" she whispered excitedly. "There's another one!"

John shook his head. "Dese hear lickers is actin' lak a pack o' Southern Baptists gettin' t'gether fur a revival! What in th' worl's goin' on?!"

Sherry did not answer. Instead, she watched as the new arrival - a rather large and nasty-looking thing that couldn't be anything else but the stage six licker that Miss Merton had described - begin making its own descent down the Admin Building wall towards the open transom window.

* * * * *

"Sounds to me like it knows we're coming, and it's calling in reinforcements," Kevin said. Their group was still gathered on the large area at the north end of the large warehouse's high side balcony. Kevin had decided to call John first and bring him up-to-date before they went after the Regent Licker in the Lobby. He looked at Linda. "John said those lickers were praying to that thing in there, and you said that he was more right than he knew. What did you mean by that?"

"Remember what I said earlier," Linda answered, "about the stage three Regent and Regis Lickers being an abnormal dead-end offshoot of the normal zombie-to-licker process of mutation? That they're very rare, but that they seem to be able to control other lickers to some extent and in some way that we still don't exactly know how?"

Kevin nodded. "Sounds like both it and they are behaving exactly the way you said they should be."

"Yes," Linda said. "Umbrella's current theory is that a Regent or Regis Licker has a limited telepathic capability – one that works on the same level as the hive mind of a colony of ants, or a hive of bees. It can call to them and direct them to perform certain tasks, in the same way that a queen ant or queen bee can impart an imperative to its hive. The fact that it's still partially human - well, former human, anyway - may have something to do with it. That may be one of the reasons why a Regent or Regis Licker mutation is so rare. This is only the third one of which I'm personally aware."

"What were the other two?" Rita asked, genuinely intrigued.

"The first was in the Chicago labs," Linda answered, "but it got so violent that Umbrella's Security Service had to put it down before we could do any real study on it. That's when we found out about its ability to call other lickers, because it called in every licker in the lab in order to save it from being killed. The U.S.S. had their hands full that day, and over half the staff in the specimen wing was killed before they got things back under control." She shivered. "The second was reported on the first night of the Outbreak inside the former Apple Inn downtown. Some plumber and his uptown girlfriend who had taken refuge in there wound up tangling with that one, and they had a hell of a time killing it from

what data was shared with me. The reports they gave to both the RPD and the Raccoon Fire Department, who came there because the building was on fire, almost perfectly matched the description of what a Regis Licker should be like."

"David King and Miss Ashcroft," Kevin said. Rita nodded in understanding, while the others just stared at him. "Two of the regulars at J's Bar downtown, who were in there with me the night the Outbreak went down. I've been wondering where they wound up. Now I know."

"How'd Umbrella get their hands on those reports?" Elza asked.

Elza's question had sounded casual enough, but there was an edge of suspicion to it that Linda did not fail to notice. "Captain Rodriguez showed them to me," she answered in a matter-of-fact manner. "I didn't ask how he got them. You don't ask questions of the Security Service. They ask them of you, and if you don't give them the answers they want, well then ...." Her voice trailed off, and she looked at the flooring of the high catwalk.

"Okay," Kevin said. There was a note in his voice that seemed to unconsciously say that all talk and discussion was now over. "We'd better take that thing out now before what's already going to be a bad fight ends up getting worse. I'll go first, and I'll pop my last flash-bang when I do. You guys will be right behind me, and you need to yank me out and slam the door shut before it goes off. After it's done, I'll pop back in and I'll have Elza's last flash-bang with me. If I need to do so, I'll pop it, too. If not, I'll sing out and the rest of you come in guns blazing. Any questions?"

"One," Rita said, grinning. "I thought I was the grenade girl."

Kevin smiled. "Not this time, Rita. You're a better shot than me. I need you with a gun more than a grenade on this one." With that, he handed her his Glock 18 machine pistol and its loaded spare clip. "Here. You're gonna need a better gun, and this'll do you better than that Beretta you've been carrying."

Rita nodded as she took the Glock, then looked up. "I thought you didn't think Glocks were any good," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Kevin looked at her for a moment, then gave her a grin back. "Well ... now that I've had the chance to experience one, I'll make an exception for Glock. Besides, you're gonna need something with more firepower for what you've gotta do. This Glock is like Elza's autopistol, and that bolt-action rifle of yours is gonna be both awkward and too slow to reload in there, if things get as hairy and as fast as I think they're going to get."

"Thanks," Rita said, and she meant it. "So ... what are you going to use?"

In reply, Kevin pulled the Magnum from his holster and held it up. "The sweetest little handgun in the world," he said, then reholstered it. "After I empty my trench broom, of course," he added, taking up his SPAS-12 shotgun again.

"Damn straight," Elza grinned, as she unholstered and readied her own autopistol. "Nobody argues when they've got a Magnum shoved up their nose."

To everyone's utter surprise, Linda pulled out her own pistol and held it in a rather bad copy of Kevin's pose. "I guess it's time I stopped being so useless and started earning my keep, too," she said, somewhat hesitantly but with a determined look in her eye.

"Damn, Linda," Rita said in amazement. "What's come over you?"

"Being scared one too many times," she said with a wry smile. "Realizing that if I keep thinking of myself as a victim, and always keep feeling sorry for myself, then I'll stay a victim." She now looked directly at Elza. "I'll never be as good as any of you guys at this sort of thing. It's just not in me. I've come to understand, though, that I've got to accept that, rather than be jealous about it, and work with what I've got doing what I can. A short while ago, I did something I thought I'd never do and would never be able to do ... and it felt good, once I had time to think about it. I stared Death straight in the face, and stood up to it despite being scared almost shitless – and I'm still here. I've never done that before – and now that I've done it, I know I can do it again. And you know what? If I had never met you guys, I'd never been able to do that. So, for what it's worth, I'm tired of being a victim, and always dragging you guys down – and I'm tired of taking out my own petty problems on the rest of you. From now on, I'll do everything I can to help out – and I mean everything. Promise. So ... in what way can I pull my fair share in what's about to happen?"

Both Kevin and Rita were now looking at Elza. Though Linda's words had been addressed to all of them, it was pretty clear from her body language and the direction of her gaze that they were meant mainly for Elza. The young woman studied Linda for several moments, and then nodded. "Well ... all right then." She smiled. "The best thing you can do right now, Linda, is stay at the back. We don't need you getting killed right off the bat. So far, that head of yours with all its knowledge about Umbrella has been a big help to us here in the Factory. We need you now more for that than anything else – so you stay at the back, and don't shoot unless we're all busy and you have no choice. Agreed, Kevin?"

Kevin nodded. "Agreed." He smiled at Linda. "I want you to keep that pistol out and ready all the same. Things might get kinda crazy before we're done. Are you going to be okay with that, Linda?"

For the first time in her entire Outbreak experience to date, Linda's face lit up with a genuine smile. "Yes, sir." she said. Gun drawn, and held in a carry pose that was a fair imitation of the one Elza had earlier tried to teach her, she moved to the back end of the balcony behind the others.

Elza was smiling and chuckling to herself, shaking her head as she handed off her last flash-bang to Kevin. He gave her his trademark wry smile in reply, then moved to the head of their group. He looked back at the other three, then nodded at all of them. "All right," he said calmly. "Let's do this, before that licker chorus in there turns into a full-sized choir."

* * * * *

The fiercely fought fracas that subsequently ensued in the Admin Building Lobby was fearsome indeed. Elza would later recall it as one of the three hardest fought battles in her entire personal Outbreak experience. Kevin and Rita also gave it top billing in their book. What Linda might have felt about it she never revealed, either then or later.

What made it so bad on the part of the survivors was the fact that by now six lickers were present in the little chorus below the Regent Licker hanging from the wall. Once Kevin popped inside, they immediately scattered to all four corners of the room, thus lessening the effects of the flash-bang grenade Kevin dropped. He was promptly pulled back and the door slammed shut according to plan, but when it was opened again two of the lickers who had apparently been little affected by the explosion of the flash-bang were waiting for him. They jumped at the door as soon as it was opened, and the only thing that saved all of them was Kevin's rapid action with his SPAS-12. Both lickers were blown clean off of the stairs and fell into the Lobby below. With that, everyone raced inside, and it became a simple battle of firepower versus numbers.

The immediate goal was to make it to the floor. The stairway from the catwalk door was narrow, and it confined them to moving single file. This forced route made them easy prey for both the lickers and their Regent Licker. Everyone got hit by the Regent Licker's long and powerful tongue at least once before clearing the upper landing, opening long itching wounds on each of them. It was also emitting a peculiar high-pitched warbling noise that sounded like a cross between a sustained air horn and a muscle car engine being revved up. Kevin finally got clear enough from the lesser lickers to give the thing a good blast in the head with his shotgun. After that, the only noises it made were more like the breathy bawling of a dying calf.

Rita was proving that she was every bit as good with an autopistol as was Elza. Between the two of them they managed to take out five of the six lickers. It would have been an achievement worth celebrating had there been the time – and if it were not for the fact that two more lickers joined the affair in mid-fight. The thick safety glass that lined the front of the Admin Building was literally covered with large spiderbursts from multiple bullet impacts, and it was a wonder that one or more of its large panes hadn't yet shattered. That happened, though, when the last of the original group of lickers (the stage six) had managed to get its tongue around Kevin's SPAS-12 and then yank it out of his hands. Kevin promptly responded by pulling his Magnum and opening fire. The first shot missed the fast-moving licker but hit the badly damaged glass panel below the open transom window, and it shattered completely from the impact. The licker promptly dropped Kevin's shotgun and fled through the opening, scrambling up the wall of the side wing of the Admin Building as fast as its legs would take it. It wasn't able to escape, however. Kevin followed it out through the opening and dropped it with his Magnum before it could reach the edge of the roof. It fell all the way back down to the parking lot, twitching and screaming, until its neck was broken by the sudden stop at the end of its fall. Death by pavement, as the old police report line went.

It had proven impossible to keep Linda out of the fight, just as Kevin and the others had feared. Nevertheless, she had given a good account of herself despite her inexperience and lack of skill. She couldn't hardly miss hitting the lickers due to the ranges involved; that is, until the number of lickers was thinned considerably – and her firing, while not as well targeted as that of the others, kept the lickers off balance and made them more susceptible to the better-aimed attacks of the others. She also got tongue-whipped twice by the Regent Licker before Kevin shot it in the head. She was the last in their line, and was only halfway down the stairs when she was knocked off her feet and her gun knocked out of her hand by one of the lickers going after Elza. Elza promptly took it out and then yelled at Linda to get out of there. Linda had made a grab for her dropped gun, gotten it, and then promptly retreated back up the stairs and through the catwalk door, closing it behind her. No one blamed her, and no one later held it against her, because this time she had actually helped them out before leaving the scene. Linda's forced retreat made perfect sense, given the circumstances and the fierceness of that fight.

At the end, not a single one of the lickers remained alive inside the Lobby or out except for the Regent Licker, and it was badly wounded. The group gathered by the desk under the stairs up to the catwalk door, directly across from the impact-riddled safety glass of the Lobby front doors. Above them, and above the bloody and crack-riddled glass of the high front windows, the wounded Regent Licker slowly turned and writhed in its hangings – dripping blood and various other body fluids, and still making its sad bleating noises. Without a word, Kevin pulled his Magnum, aimed carefully, and fired. The cry cut off in mid-note as the thing's head exploded. Its body broke free of its hangings, and it fell with a loud WHUMP! to the Lobby floor. Dust and other detria were scattered by the impact, but soon it had settled ... and was just as still as the now-dead thing that had stirred it up in the first place.

Through one of the glass panels that still had portions clear enough to see through, Rita saw John and Sherry poking their heads out from the security hut across the parking lot. She walked over to the open frame of the now-shattered glass panel by the Lobby front doors, stuck her head and shoulders through, and wearily waved towards them. "We're done," she said in a voice that betrayed how tired she suddenly felt. "We got it. Ya'll can come on in. It's safe now."

* * * * *

There was a loud whooosh! as the pneumatics of the security door slid open along its track inside the wall. The group of RPD survivors, now accompanied by John and Sherry, and having taken the time to both treat the worst of their wounds and to restock their ammo from the police cars parked outside, carefully made their way from the Lobby into a long and dimly lit hall. Its walls appeared to be painted a dark shade of lime green, and it was broken up towards the ceiling by grey conduits and half-rusted junction boxes. There was a door immediately to their left, with the hall proper extending to the right down the full length of that part of the Admin Building's wing that adjoined the Parking Lot. The hallway dead-ended with what appeared to be a large breaker or junction box, with another security door like the one they had just passed through to the left. There appeared to be an indentation of some kind halfway down the hall, but whether it was just an alcove or another hallway was difficult to tell without getting closer. Halfway between this side opening and their current location at their end of the hall was what looked like a small switch or breaker box high above, out of which a small red light was steadily pulsing. The hallway was dark because all of the lights were out, and the only illumination was being provided both by emergency lights and the steadily pulsing light of the small breaker box up and to their left.

"I think I know where we are," Elza said, turning to John. "Hey John, does that door behind us look familiar?"

John studied it for a moment. "Hey, yeah!" he said. "Dat's da back door in da alley!" He reached out his hand and tried to turn the handle, but it refused to budge. "It's locked," he said.

"Oh, really?" Linda said somewhat sarcastically, then looked somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry about that, Mr. Kendo. Old habits die hard."

"S'alright," John said, then grinned and made the motion of holding a placard in front of himself. "Here's my sign." Linda simply stared, not getting the joke, but all of the others smiled. Even Sherry was grinning, sharing in the mirth of the others, although she didn't get it either.

"I guess the first order of business is to turn on the lights," Elza said. "I'll bet that breaker box up there with the flashing light is what we need to reset. Someone wanna give me a boost?"

John immediately lumbered over to the spot and positioned himself directly under the breaker box. He then made a stirrup by holding his arms down at full length and interlocking the fingers of both hands. "Ready when you is, Miss Elza," he said.

"Al-ley oop!" Elza said, as she trotted forward and leapt slightly, putting one foot into John's improvised stirrup while putting both of her hands on his shoulders for balance. He promptly lifted up, and that also brought her head up level with the breaker box. He stopped moving just as soon as he saw this happening in order to keep from driving her head into the ceiling. Elza grinned down at him and he back, then she reached into the breaker box and threw the switch beside the flashing red light. It immediately switched to green as all of the florescents set in the ceiling kicked on simultaneously. "I think that did it," she said, right before John let her back down to the floor. She started to turn to the others, but stopped as a gleam at the far end of the hall caught her eye. "Hey, what's that?" she said.

"What's what?" Kevin said, trying to see whatever it was that Elza had seen. All of the others were now looking, too.

"I thought I saw something on the edge of that big breaker box down there," Elza said. "Couldn't make it out from here, but it's made of metal. It reflected in just the right direction for me to see it when the florescents kicked back on."

"Probably a key," Rita said. "That's the same place my dad used to keep the spare house key at my childhood home: on the top edge of the electric box outside the house. Kinda of a hide in plain sight deal."

"A lot of people do that," Kevin added. "Okay, let's go get it – but slowly. We don't know what's in that alcove ahead."

"Think we should break back up into our two groups again?" Rita suggested. "One bunch can head down that side passage while the other checks out the end of the hall, and maybe that door down there, too."

Kevin regarded Rita for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Good idea. Same as before. Elza, you go with John and Sherry. Rita and Linda, you're with me. Elza, you take the end of the hall, and we'll go to the side."

"What if I want to go to the side?" Elza said. Kevin gave her a look, but she just grinned in reply. "Just kidding, Kevin. Straight ahead's fine with me."

Just then they were interrupted by a tapping noise. All of them looked around, trying to find the source of the sound, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere. It was both regular and irregular, like in one of those old wartime movies about submariners trapped in a sunken sub, who bang on the pipes in the sub in an effort to get the attention of anybody who might be listening for such noises.

Kevin listened intently for a moment, brow furrowed as if concentrating or in thought, and then shook his head. "Whatever it is, it ain't Morse," he said.

"Maybe it's one of those big lickers rapping with its claws on a pipe somewhere," Sherry suggested.

"Could be," Elza said, "but the sound isn't right. That sounds more like metal on metal. What do you think, Kevin? Rita? John?"

"'Minds me of a guy in jail tappin' out a message to da guy in da next cell," John said. "Dat way, da jailer doan know whut dey're sayin'."

"Well, if it's in some kind of code, it could be anything," Rita added.

"If it is in code, or even if it's a message at all," Kevin remarked dryly. "Nothing we can do about it now. Maybe one of us will find out what it is." He nodded at Elza, and she nodded back. "All right, folks. Let's get a move on."

* * * * *

The object on top of the large breaker box had been a key after all. Unfortunately, the security door that was catty-corner to the breaker box didn't have a keyed lock. It had a combination card reader and numeric keypad lock similar to those Elza had seen back at the RPD, save that this one had no voice recognition option.

"Well, ain't that sumfun'," John observed. "We gots a key with no doah, an' a doah wid no key."

Elza started to say something in reply, and then stopped. John was absolutely right, after all. She allowed herself to chuckle as she examined the key for a moment, then looked over at John. "Maybe. Tell you what. John, why don't you head back down the hall with this key and try it on the back door down there? It's got a key lock. Maybe this is the one that fits it."

"Sure, Miss Elza." The burly man took the proffered key in his big hand, turned, and then trotted back down the hall.

Sherry continued looking at the door beside them. "I know what's on the other side," she said, "but I don't know how to get it open."

"What's in there?" Elza said.

"Boxes of papers and stuff," Sherry promptly answered. "Daddy said that's where they lock up important things that has to do with the trucks going in and out." She looked thoughtful. "This could be that safe place Officer Ryman wants us to find – but we can't get it open, and I don't know how."

"Then that's that," Elza replied. "Without a way to unlock this door, I'd say we've done all we can do here. Let's just hope that Kevin, Rita, and Linda are doing better than we are."

Just as Elza finished speaking, there was an audible click! as John unlocked and opened the back door. He slammed it shut almost as quickly, but in the brief time it was open both Elza and Sherry heard the unmistakable hissing of multiple lickers.

"Sheeyyiitt!" John cried, as he hurriedly re-locked the door with the key. Two shakes of a lamb's tail later and he was back with them, his forehead now covered with sweat – with Kevin, Rita, and Linda right behind him. "Dat alley's crawlin' wid dem licker things, Miss Elza!"

* * * * *

At the same time that Elza's group was having fun in the Green Hallway proper - as all of them now thought of it - Kevin's group was enjoying its own form of adventure entertainment halfway down the hall. The side opening had turned out to be a short leg of hallway that had promptly opened up into a large rectangular enclosed alcove or space. In front of them in the far left corner of the alcove was a single security door that was resting in the closed position. In the far right corner and running the full length of the alcove's east wall back in their direction was a single large metal storage cabinet and a large set of metal storage shelves. Completing the decor of the alcove was a single large packing crate. It was to their immediate left in the southwest corner of the alcove.

Rita eyed the crate. "Somebody could have used this to climb up to that breaker box by pushing it around and under it, had not all of us come in here together like we did," she observed.

"I don't know about you guys, but I've had my fill of crate pushing for today," Kevin quipped. "Or for much else, for that matter. Let's check out those storage shelves and that cabinet first, then we'll see what's behind Door Number Two over there."

"Door Number Two?" Linda asked.

"It's a—" Rita began, then stopped when she saw how perplexed Linda looked. She smiled at her. "It's an old joke, Linda. Refers to an old TV game show, where they had numbered doors on the stage. You could keep whatever prize you had just won, or take what was behind whichever numbered door the host chose. Sometimes you made out like a bandit, but more often than not you got screwed if you chose whatever was behind the door."

Linda nodded. "Oh, joy. Given what just happened in the Lobby out there, I'm not sure I want what's behind 'Door Number Two.'"

"We'll worry about it in a minute," Kevin said. He had already walked over to the storage cabinet as Rita and Linda had talked. Now he opened its doors. "Hullo, what have we here?" he said. He pulled out a case of shotgun shells and held it up so they could see it.

Rita whistled. "Any more like that in there, Kevin?"

"Naw, just the one," Kevin said, setting it back in place. "There's these, though." He next pulled out a single box of nine millimeter parabellum ammo, Tony's Arms brand, and then pulled out a single first aid spray.

"Nice little cache," Rita said. "I wonder why they're here."

"Probably for the regular security guards, wherever they are," Linda observed.

"Or whatever," Kevin added. He was in the process of putting the items back in the cabinet when all three of them suddenly heard the back door to the building opened. What they heard next made them freeze in place, but it was just as quickly followed by the back door being slammed shut again and John cursing loudly.

"Oh, boy," Rita said. "Sounds like our inside-out friends are back."

"Yeah," Kevin said. He shut the security cabinet and headed back out to the Green Hallway with Rita and Linda in tow. They found Elza's group conferring down by the large breaker box at the hallway's east end. "What the hell was that?" Kevin said, thumbing back down the hallway.

"Dat alley's crawlin' wid dem licker things, Miss Elza!" John exclaimed

Kevin looked at Elza. "That thing on top of the breaker box was a key after all," Elza explained. "It's for the back door. When John opened it in order to try the key, though ...."

"Ah closed it as fast as I cud," John said, still excited from the encounter. "Dey wuz everwheah! On da ground, on da walls, an' even on da bottom of dat overhead walkway!"

"You did the right thing," Kevin said. "We just got through one bad battle with those things. Another one like that, and we'll be hurting for ammo again."

"I think I know why they're out there," Elza mused aloud.

"Why?" Kevin asked.

Elza smiled grimly as she spoke. "The Regent Licker called them before it died. I'll bet it called out to every licker in the area, just as Linda said that one did up in Umbrella's Chicago labs when she was working there."

"You're probably right," Linda added, "and if they're back there, then that means they're now back in front of the building, too – and back inside the Lobby as well. That means—"

"We're trapped," Elza finished for her, her face grim.

\------------------------------

Chapter 19 - Remedy

There were at least six dozen or so lickers of all kinds now present in the warehouse district of the Umbrella Factory Complex, crawling all over its Administration Building or in the immediate surrounding area. They had heard the Imperative and they had responded. Surprise-fight-hurt-dying-protect-food-tasty-kill might be the closest thing to a human translation, if anyone had been able to understand it. Their Regent was dead and it had issued the imperative even as it was dying, and from everywhere in the surrounding area they had come. It was not out of a sense of loyalty, or even a desire for revenge. They had sunk too low for that, leaving behind such complex philosophies along with their human minds once they had begun to evolve - or was that devolve? - into their new forms. They now operated purely on an animalistic level, responding primarily to animal instinct and secondarily to rudimentary animal logic and drives. Their hive-oriented minds, if Umbrella's theories were true, had been given an imperative and they had responded. It was as simple as that – and that was the reason why Umbrella had eventually given up on developing anything really useful based on the licker life form. It just didn't have enough intelligence to be controlled, only directed. In that sense, it wasn't much better than a common dog, save that it lacked a dog's sense of pack loyalty and rudimentary intelligence. All a licker knew, as far as anyone knew, was existence and needs, and how and to where to be directed in order to perform the simplest or most basic of tasks. For it, that was enough. Oh, it still had its uses, of course, insofar as Umbrella's scheme of T-virus mutations had developed. Lickers made good pack killers, for example. You could simply direct them into an area where they would register food, and let them proceed as came naturally. The only problem was getting them to know when to stop once the target or targets had been taken out, and it had proven impossible to teach them any form of control. For that a Regent or Regis Licker was needed ... but the Regent was now dead, and all of the lickers in this part of the Factory were now on their own, with their last imperative from the Regent still burned into their simple minds. Protect-food-tasty-kill ... kill ... kill ... kill ....

* * * * *

With nowhere else to go, and with only Kevin's Door Number Two left to search behind, the group of survivors had fallen in behind him inside the little alcove just off of the Green Hallway. The door whooshed up as soon as Kevin hit its control stud – and he found himself looking straight into the face of a Crimson Zombie. A split second later, it staggered backwards as a round from a SPAS-12 shotgun tore through its chest. Another split second later, and its head disintegrated from the blast of a Remington Police Special. What was left of the now-headless body promptly flopped to the floor in a bloody heap. There was the sound of fast shuffling and a familiar whining moan as a second Crimson all but dashed around the corner, but it promptly staggered under two more shotgun blasts and a peppering of small arms fire. It spun about, blood gushing from its mouth and spurting from multiple gunshot wounds, then its head jerked back and it gurgled helplessly as a final nine millimeter pistol shot destroyed its larynx and shattered its neck bone. It too fell in a heap beside its undead companion and moved no more.

While Kevin and John were busy dragging the remains out of the room and to the far end of the Green Corridor, and while Kevin ensured they would never revive again thanks to the loan of Elza's knife, the others began to look around the room where they now found themselves. Kevin had mentioned that it looked a lot like many of the loading offices at some of the places he had worked before joining the RPD, and John quickly agreed with him. The Loading Office it became in their minds from that point on, just for the sake of reference. It was shaped like the English letter "U," with a long partition set up in the middle of the room lengthwise and running for about three-quarters of its length. On the front side of the partition, posted on the opposite wall, and also scattered on the floor was the usual industrial detria – cork boards, posted notices, company posters, the occasional site photo or picture, various memos and reports, and so on. There was a large industrial-type photocopier along the side wall, but it was apparently broken – for it was unplugged and a notice taped to it read OUT OF ORDER. Beyond that was a small table and chair, and on it sat a multi-line telephone and a smashed notebook computer. The telephone's receiver was missing, but a quick glance revealed it to be on the floor – with its cord yanked in two. There was blood on one end and its cap piece was cracked, as if it had been used for a crude cudgel. There were three large grey combination storage and shelving units lined along the far wall, with a large packing crate and several smaller cardboard shipping boxes on top filling out what would have been an empty corner on their far side. Around the turn and behind the partitions were several double-wide storage lockers and a single low filing cabinet. Lining the opposite wall were three desks with accompanying rolling office chairs. The back two of the three desks had computers on them, but only the one on the desk at the far end still seemed to be working. It was displaying an old-fashioned text-based spreadsheet of some kind, like that old program with the flower name that was so popular once upon a time. Above it and sitting on a shelf mounted to the the back wall was an intercom system control box, complete with an old-fashioned short stand microphone. The microphone was no longer on the shelf, however, but hanging by its cord down in front of a nearby wall vent. All three of the desks behind the partition, as well as the floor beneath them, were covered in loose papers – and there were more than a few bloodstains as well to liven up the scene. These seemed to be largely concentrated at the first two desks. The source appeared to be the second desk – where the screen of the computer was smashed, and there was blood both on the monitor and the keyboard.

Elza's attention was immediately drawn to a key on a tabbed ring lying on the desk next to the smashed computer. The tab bore the legend W1 in carefully written black ink. She picked it up and held it before her, showing it to the others. "Wanna bet this is what I think it is?"

"I hope so," Rita said. "If it fits that door we had to bypass on that other warehouse ...."

"W1," Linda said. "Warehouse One. Makes sense." She said it almost reverently, but no one seemed to notice. They also didn't seem to notice when she began to move forward, then just as quickly caught herself and settled back down.

"Here," Elza said, handing the key to Rita. "You better keep this until Kevin gets in here."

Sherry's eyes were drawn to the computer that was still on. She would have rushed back to see it, had not Elza put a hand on one of her shoulders. "Careful," she reminded the little girl, and then smiled. "Just in case."

"Yes Miss Elza," Sherry said, as she let herself fall behind the others.

Elza and then Rita led the group, making their way slowly down the aisle between the storage cabinets and desks. They carefully opened first the filing cabinet and then each of the storage lockers, always ready with their weapons in case something burst out at them. Nothing did. They found a few odds and ends that looked useful – a small box of first aid supplies, a small amount of prepacked snack food, and so on – but that was all. None of the storage lockers contained any ammunition of any kind, and that was what both women had secretly hoped they would find. Similar results were obtained when they searched the first two desks as they passed each in turn. All they found were the usual office implements – pens, paperclips, staplers, notepads, one half-used roll of transparent tape, an empty packing tape gun, and so on.

Suddenly they heard the air kick on in the room. Almost immediately they heard a very familiar tapping noise. Everyone looked down at the end of the line of desks, and to the microphone hanging in front of the air vent. As it slowly dangled and danced in front of the moving air, it would occasionally strike the surface of the vent. Tap ... tap-tap ... tap ....

"Well, that explains that," Rita said, looking at Elza.

"Yeah," Elza said, staring at the dangling mike. It was hard to tell from the way she sounded if she was either disappointed or simply frustrated. "Like that old movie, you know? On The Beach?"

"Yeah," Rita nodded, "I've seen it, too. I see what you mean. On The Beach it is."

"Huh?" Linda asked. Both she and Sherry looked confused.

"Never mind," Rita said. "I'll explain later, if we get time."

It was not until the reached the last desk in the Loading Office when they found anything out of the ordinary. Elza was looking at the computer, her hands resting on Sherry's shoulders, while Rita examined the intercom system on the back shelf. Linda remained standing in the aisle about two paces back, doing nothing else save watching the others.

"Wish this were a radio," Rita said. She now reached down and picked up the fallen mike, then set it back upright on the shelf beside the intercom system.

"They probably use that to make announcements across this part of the Factory," Elza offered. She was still staring at the computer's screen, with its flickering spreadsheet display. "Did you notice that loudspeaker mounted in the corner back there?" She nodded with their head back towards the other end of the Loading Office, then resumed looking at the spreadsheet again.

Rita glanced in the direction Elza had indicated. Up in one of the high corners of the room, she saw a loudspeaker mounted to the wall. "Oh, yeah," she said. "I guess they need that to announce whenever any freight comes in, or is leaving."

"Uh-huh," Elza said absentmindedly. She leaned over Sherry's shoulder, then removed one of her hands from Sherry and reached for the keyboard. She tapped one of the keys, and immediately the spreadsheet disappeared – to be replaced by a low-end green graphical representation of a videogame. "Ahhh," Elza said aloud. "I thought so."

"What is it?" Sherry said excitedly. Her interest in the old computer had perked noticeably once the videogame screen came up.

"Somebody was bored with their job," Elza explained, "and dug up this old videogame from days gone by that would work on this old pile of junk."

"That's Umbrella property," Linda offered from behind them, "and playing videogames on company time is a violation of standing Umbrella policy."

"If they catch you," Elza said with a smile. She looked back at Linda. "In a job like this, it would be awfully hard unless you had an auditor or inspector show up – and even then, there are ways around that. Like this game here." She nodded back to the screen. "One of my boyfriends in high school was into old computers, and he showed me something like this back then. Some people who wrote those old games would put fake work screens into them just for this purpose, so you couldn't get caught playing a game when you weren't supposed to."

"That sounds cool!" Sherry said, her eyes lighting up. She looked up at Elza. "Can I try it?"

Elza thought a moment, "Sure, Sherry. I don't see any reason why not – unless one of you—?" She looked first at Rita, who only smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Linda merely snorted. She then patted the little girl on the shoulder. "Okay, baby. It's all yours."

By this time, Kevin and John had finished with their grisly task. They had returned and were standing behind Linda, watching the others. Kevin decided it was time to announce their return. "And as for the rest of us," Kevin said, "lets move back around and hold a council of war." Everyone except Sherry looked at him. "Well?" he said, looking back. "We gotta figure a way out of the mess we're in, folks."

"Right," Elza said after a beat, nodding in agreement.

"Ise stays wid Miss Sherry," John volunteered. "Mah brain doan coun' much fer nuthin'"

"I should say not!" Rita began, but stopped as she saw Kevin nod his head.

"It's all right," Kevin said. "We can do without you, John, and that sounds like a good idea, You go ahead and be Sherry's bodyguard, and that way Elza here can be free to go with us." He then glanced at the others. "Come on, guys. We really do need to talk."

* * * * *

"... and that's the way I see the fix we're in," Kevin was saying. "Instant death from all of those lickers once we step outside, or slow death by starvation from being trapped in here with only a little food and almost no water. And maybe we'll get really unlucky and those things will find a way inside, and slaughter all of us where we stand or sit. Look, I know we're all tired and are in bad need of sleep. So am I – but all of those are unacceptable options, guys. We need at least one choice were we can survive. There's only one place left to go around here once we get out - that one warehouse we couldn't get into earlier - and thank goodness you found the key for that warehouse door in here. Still, that key's no good if we can't get to that door. So think, folks – and do it as far outside the box as you can. That's probably the only way we're going to get out of this mess." "You mean the one were trapped in, right?" Rita said. She was tired and was no longer trying to hide it, but she managed a grin and a twinkle in her eye anyway.

Kevin looked at her for a moment, then grinned in reply. "Yeah, right." he said, then looked back at the others. "And if you can't think of anything, just sit or lay down somewhere and try to take a nap."

The others nodded – all except for John and Sherry. They were still down at the computer, where Sherry was still playing the videogame Elza had discovered. John was down there ostensibly to protect Sherry, but it soon became apparent he was having as much fun watching Sherry play the game as Sherry was actually playing it. Tiny little bleeps! and bloops! were coming from the computer as she furiously worked the keyboard controls, trying valiantly to protect a fantasy space colony from fantasy space aliens. John stood behind her, looking just as excited as she, and now and again offering an encouraging word or comment.

Elza put a hand up to her head and began massaging the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. She let out a long sigh as she worked it, then stopped and lowered her hand. "Sorry, guys," she said, looking up at them. "It's been a long day."

Rita reached over and laid a hand on her shoulder. "S'okay. We're all tired, and you've had it even worse than us in some respects. Why don't you try to take a nap, while Kevin and Linda and I try to work out our problems?"

Elza looked over at Rita and smiled. She lifted up one of her own hands and placed it on top of Rita's, clasping it within her own. "Thanks. I think I will." She glanced down at John and Sherry at the computer, then back at the other three. "I'll be out in the alcove, if you need me. Might be a bit more quiet out there."

"Mind if I join you?" Linda asked. "I'm getting kinda groggy myself."

Elza looked at her for a long moment, then shook her head. "No. C'mon."

"Linda, could you hold up just a minute?" Kevin asked. "I want to ask you some more questions about those lickers."

Linda gave a tired shrug. "Sure."

The three of them watched as Elza left the Loading Office. The door hissed open and then shut again as she left. Kevin now fixed his gaze on Linda. "Can you remember anything, anything at all about that licker attack in Chicago, or riot, or whatever it was, that might help us?"

Linda put a hand up to her left temple and began massaging it. "I'll try," she said. She continued to massage her temple as she thought. Presently she stopped and lowered that hand to her mouth, resting her chin on her fist. "Things got pretty crazy once that Regent Licker we were trying to control spurred the others to action," she recalled. "Staffers and lab workers getting torn apart, Umbrella Security shooting everything in sight without even bothering to see what or who they were shooting, sample cages and specimens going everywhere. Real pandemonium. The fire didn't help things, either."

"Fire?" Rita asked.

"Yeah," Linda said, exhaling tiredly. "A fire broke out in one of the hallways, thanks to those stupid Security Service goons. One of them shot an oxygen tank or something, and there was an explosion and fire – and that only added to the panic and confusion." She stopped for a moment, recalling the scene in her mind. "You know, the weirdest thing happened in that hallway during all that mess, according to one of the staffers who survived."

Kevin's eyebrows went up. "Oh?" he said. "What was that?"

"Well," Linda continued, "he said he saw one of the escaped lickers sitting stock still on its haunches amid all the fire and confusion, staring up at the fire alarm. That's all it was doing. It didn't last long, because one of the Umbrella Security troopers saw it and shot it dead. Still, he said it was the damnedest thing he'd ever seen a T-mutant do."

"Sounds almost like what John saw in the Lobby earlier," Rita said, "except for the singing."

"If it had been singing, or whatever it actually is," Linda said, "he wouldn't have been able to hear it because of all of the ruckus going on around it. Still, now that you've made me remember it and think about it, that is a lot like how our licker test subjects were behaving when first exposed to our Regent – before things got out of control."

"What do you think, Kevin?" Rita asked. "You think maybe if we pull the fire alarms, then maybe that'll make the lickers think their Regent is back, or something?"

Linda shook her head. "It's not that simple, Rita. There were other alarms going off during the licker breakout in Chicago. I doubt it's just an issue of the alarm sounding."

"No, but I'll bet it's related," Kevin said. "I think Rita's onto something, and it has to do with that one fire alarm in that one hallway in that building in Chicago. Try to remember, Linda. What was different about that one alarm as opposed to all of the others going off?"

Linda furrowed her brow, thinking hard. "It was just an alarm, like all the others. I mean, with all those sirens sounding, and air horns and alarm klaxons going off, and that bell ringing, it was all just a big ... wait a minute." Linda raised a knuckle to her mouth. "No, wait ..." She thought a bit longer, then pointed at Kevin and Rita. "It was a bell alarm. In fact, those were the only bell alarms in the whole building. That part of the building had old-style fire alarms that used bells instead of air horns. That was the only difference."

Kevin looked at Rita and she looked back at him. "Interesting," he said aloud.

"Now that I think about it," Linda added, "those two who were trapped in the Apple Inn with that Regis Licker? According to the reports I saw, they said they used the fire alarms to distract the smaller lickers so they could get in close and kill it. If those were bell alarms too ...." Her voice trailed off as the realization sank in.

"That tears it," Kevin said.

"I think it's worth a try," Rita said excitedly.

Kevin looked around the room until he saw the little red box high up on the wall that signified a fire alarm proper. He then grabbed one of the chairs and moved it under the alarm. "Get me Elza's tools, will ya?" he asked. Linda and Rita promptly complied, and shortly thereafter he had the cover off of the fire alarm. As he finished removing it, he took one look at its contents and groaned. "Sh--" he started to say, then stole a glance at John and Sherry over the partition. Both were still engrossed in the videogame. He bit his lip, then looked down at the other two women and shook his head. "No go. This is an air horn type."

"Crud," Rita said dejectedly. "I'll bet they're all like that all over the Factory, too."

Linda tried to smile. "Well, at least it was worth the try."

"Yeah," Kevin said, joining them as he climbed down from the chair and stood with them on the floor again, "but all that means is we're right back where we started. We're still trapped."

* * * * *

Elza sat on the crate in the alcove, leaning into the corner. She couldn't sleep, despite how tired she felt and how much she wanted and needed to doze off. Her mind was still racing, mulling over the day's events and what had led them to their present plight, and it simply wouldn't slow down enough for her to doze off. She hated whenever that happened. That was one of the problems of being the kind of gung-ho young woman she was, as she had found out long ago.

Anytime she got too worked up, she couldn't sleep no matter what. She just about had to keep going until she was absolutely dog tired, and then practically collapse into unconsciousness from sheer exhaustion. This looked like it was going to be one of those times.

The Loading Office door whooshed open, and Rita stepped out. She looked in Elza's direction, smiled, and then walked over. "Room for one more?" she asked.

Elza scooted herself over closer to the wall, so Rita would have room to sit down. The door whooshed shut again as Rita approached. "Sure," she said. "I can't sleep anyway. Adrenaline's still pumping, if you know what I mean."

"Oh," Rita said. "I thought it was because the stink coming from what's left of our two late friends at the end of the hall."

"I've smelled worse," Elza said dryly. "I've slept through worse, too. That office smells just as bad, you know, what with them being trapped in there for four days."

"I do like you do," Rita said, "and like Kevin was taught both by his Indian friends and in the service. I tune it out as quick as I can. You just about have to under these circumstances." She now joined Elza on the crate. Her feet dangled above the floor while Elza's almost touched, for she was several inches shorter than the younger woman. "Anyway, I do know what you mean, believe me. You know – like the old Ray Stevens song?" And with that she began to sing in a pleasant contralto.

And I ain't sittin' up with the dead no more,  
since the dead started sittin' up, too!

Elza laughed. "Now that's funny, Rita. Sick, but funny."

"You looked like you could use a good laugh," Rita said, also chuckling. "I know I did. By the way, you might like to know that Kevin and Linda thought they were on to something, but it didn't pan out." Briefly she described what Linda had revealed about the licker attraction to ringing bells, and how her idea to use the fire alarms had failed due to their being of the air horn type. "I thought about mentioning that the North Zion A.M.E. Church about three miles north up on Highway 9 has a bell, but I didn't think that would go over very well." She sighed. "Kevin's in a bad mood and Linda's just plumb tired. John and Sherry are still playing with that videogame on that computer. So, I thought I'd come out here and see if you were still awake."

Elza chuckled softly. "Thanks for the update. I'm glad some of us still have brains enough left to think. Mine's fried. All I can think about is everything else that's happened, and things in the past that somehow now seem to point to the Outbreak happening. And it just keeps playing over and over again, like a broken record, or a song that gets stuck in your head and you can't get it out no matter what. You know?"

Rita nodded. "Yeah. I know." She leaned back against the wall. "You know, if the RPD had done its job like it was supposed to do—"

"But how could you?" Elza interrupted. "Umbrella had you under its thumb, too. Well, mostly. But some of you were still honest cops."

"Not enough," Rita said sadly. "And some of the best of us kinda went to seed there in those last few years – and some were just bad apples to begin with, and just needed some time to sour. The thing about it is that we didn't do our job ... and now everyone's paying the price for that."

"It's not everyone's fault at the RPD," Elza pointed out. "I mean, with folks like you, and Chief Clemons, and Chris and Jill, and the other members of STARS—"

"But that's just it!" Rita said fiercely. "They were lone voices, few and isolated, fighting Umbrella despite everything. And a lot of good cops like me, well, we just kept our heads low and tried to save our jobs. We could have helped them out a lot more."

"You're helping now," Elza pointed out. "Those case files we retrieved, remember?"

"Yeah," Rita said. "Maybe that'll make up for everything we've lost. If we can help you somehow get those out of Raccoon City and into the right hands, Umbrella's ass is grass."

"Gotta get out first." Elza observed dryly.

The two sat quietly for a while, saying nothing, each lost in their own thoughts about what had just been said. It was Elza who finally broke the silence. "Tell me about Darcy."

Rita looked at Elza, and then a sad smile spread across her features. "She was the best friend a girl like me could ever have. We were both Mississippi girls, but I'm from just outside Tupelo and she was a city girl from Biloxi. Despite that one difference, we fit together like tongue-in-groove when I first came up here." She laughed. "We had so much in common, and we hung out together so much after work, that the others started callin' us the Bobbsey Twins."

Elza nodded, smiling. "Sounds like me and Claire."

"You said earlier you two grew up together," Rita observed.

"That we did," Elza said, still smiling. "Uncle Jack is originally a Yankee from upstate New York, and he still has lots of relatives up there. I remember one summer, when my parents let me go with Claire and her folks to visit and spend a few days with one of Claire's rich aunts, who lived in one of the snob hill areas of New York City. That was wild." She smiled at the memory, and then continued. "Anyway, Chris and Claire's dad and my dad were both in the Army during the Vietnam War, and both got wounded during the Tet Offensive. They both got sent home to recover, and my dad - who grew up in Raccoon City - invited Uncle Jack to the family farm to help him recover. He fell in love with Raccoon City and the surrounding area, and that's when he met Aunt Krista – Claire's mom. Anyway, Uncle Jack wound up moving here and marrying Aunt Krista about a year or two after he got discharged, and my dad and his folks helped them buy the farm next to theirs – and that's where they settled down. Claire's brother Chris came first, a few years after they got married, and then not long after he was born both Mom and Aunt Krista got pregnant about the same time. As it turned out, our birthdays wound up being only a month apart. That's how come Claire and I have been neighbors and friends ever since we were born."

Rita nodded, smiling as she did so. "That's neat." she said.

Elza laughed. "Well, that's why I was asking about Darcy," she said. "The way you talk about her, it sounds like you two were just as close. And that Rebecca woman, Rebecca ... Rebecca ...?"

"Chambers," Rita said, grinning. "She wasn't much older than you are when she first showed up at the RPD, a still wet-behind-the-ears, green-as-all-out paramedic police officer straight out of the Academy. She figured out right away, though, that I was pretty much the RPD's mama-san and she stuck to me like glue. We became good friends, almost as good as I was with Darcy." She suddenly stopped speaking and looked down. "Poor Rebecca," she said shaking her head.

"You're always saying that," Elza said. "What happened to her?"

Rita looked up, and Elza noticed that were tears in her eyes. "The Mansion Incident," she said simply.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Elza said hurriedly.

Rita put a hand up to her face to wipe away her tears. "She quit the force and checked herself into a nuthouse after all of that was over," she said, with a bit of a sob. "She did that right after filing her last report on the whole mess. Caught everyone by surprise – including me." She forced a laugh, although her eyes remained moist. "So much happened to her in those two days she and what Bravo Team survivors were still alive at the time were trapped in there. By the time it was all over, she was the only one of them left – and she only barely made it out with Chris and the others. You know, I went to visit her after she did what she did. There's some things that happened to her while she was up at the mansion that ... well ... she still won't talk about. She was pretty rattled by the whole thing, and I don't blame her one bit for thinking she might be going crazy. You know – post-traumatic stress disorder and all that? She isn't crazy, though – I'm sure of that - and I get the feeling Rebecca will come out once she's good and ready." Now she looked at Elza and forced a smile. "Probably a lot sooner than anyone thinks. I think she just needed some time away from places and people that kept reminding her of what happened. I hope so, anyway." Rita now forced another laugh, but this one was followed by a sad sigh. "I was hoping Darcy would be the same way – that she had somehow escaped too. That is, until the zombies stormed the new RPD ... and there she was at the back of the pack ...."

Elza reached over and clasped Rita's hand. Rita turned the clasped hand so that she could clasp it back with her own, and nodded. "Thanks," she said, gripping Elza's hand firmly, tears now freely flowing from the older woman's eyes. "You know, all of us have lost so much because of the Outbreak," she said. Suddenly there was a clear look to her eyes despite her tears, and her jaw was now set. "That's why I want to see Umbrella go down," she added. "It's the least they deserve for what they've done to everyone."

"You won't get any argument from me," Elza said. "God knows I've had my share of dealing with the Spencers."

Rita nodded. She wiped away her tears, and then looked at Elza. There was a strange expression on her face, as if pondering some deep unknown. She remained quiet for several seconds, studying the young woman beside her, and then finally spoke. "You know," she said, "every now and then you hint at something that went on between you and Umbrella – something that has to do with that all-expenses-paid college scholarship you got from them, but you never want to talk about it." She smiled. "Care to tell ol' mama-san?"

Elza looked at her for a long time. When she spoke, she spoke slowly, and her words were carefully chosen. "If I were to tell anyone, Rita, it would be you. You and I are so much alike, and there's experiences we've had in both our lives that sound similar, despite our differences in age and backgrounds." She smiled sadly. "I think you alone of everyone might understand, given some of the things that have happened to you." She looked down. "Still ... I'm not ready ... yet. But when I am," and with that she looked up and straight at Rita, "you'll be the first to know."

Rita squeezed Elza's still-clasped hand. "It's all right, hon," she said. "No hurry. I've just found it's a lot easier to bear your burdens in life if someone else knows about 'em, someone who understands and maybe has been through the same sort of thing, so they can help you shoulder the load now and again." She let go of Elza's hand and looked away to the opposite wall. "I think I'm beginning to understand, or perhaps suspect, what happened to you, but that's all. I can only guess at the who, where, when, and why, and relate that to certain things I know about, as well as my own life experiences." She now looked back, and gave Elza a resolute expression. "Here's some free advice, Elza. Don't let it eat you up. You're too incredible a young woman to let something like that ruin you for life ... or ..." and with that she looked at Elza and grinned broadly, "... you'll end up a single old sourpuss like me."

"If you're an old sourpuss, then I'm an old biddy," Elza said, grinning back.

Rita laughed, and flicked her forefinger at Elza as if she were trying to swipe the tip of her nose. "Biddy-biddy-biddy," she said, almost with a giggle.

"Meowr! " Elza said, laughing as she did so. She suddenly put on a fair impression of Kevin's trademark wry smile. "Pussy-pussy-puss-puss!"

Rita's face took on an expression of mock horror. "Hey, now!" she pretended to exclaim. "You leave my love life outta this, all right?"

"Sorry," Elza said, but she was still laughing. "Now that you mention it, that reminds me of a story I heard about at school, concerning that Captain Wesker I've heard you and Kevin talk about so many times lately."

"That despicable creep?" Rita said, and she was suddenly all seriousness. "Hon, he was one of the bad cops. A very bad cop, as it turned out. In hip deep with Umbrella all along, and nobody knew about it – although that cold way he always acted should have tipped us off. But never mind me. What's your story?"

"Only this," Elza said. "There was a rumor going around the university when I first got there about the reason why Doctor Mueller's wife Anna had to leave town not long ago. You know Doctor Müller? That creepy white-haired guy with the big glasses from Umbrella who practically runs the biochemistry department?"

"Creepy isn't strong enough a word," Rita said, nodding, "but yeah, I know him. Go on."

"Well," Elza said, "according to what I heard, your Captain Wesker was having an affair with Doctor Müller's wife."

Rita's eyes widened. "No!" she said.

Elza nodded. "That was the rumor – and supposedly they had a kid, too. That's why she had to leave town."

Rita was stunned into silence. After a while, though, she nodded. "And here I thought I knew everything that was or has been going on at the RPD, and this is news even to me." She thought a bit more. "Come to think of it, that does explain that rather extended leave of absence Wesker said he had to take a while back." She thought a bit more, and then gave a mean smile. "And everyone guessed he had a girlfriend on the side there for a while, although nobody could figure out who." She chuckled. "So Wesker had a bastard kid. Was it a boy or a girl?"

"Boy," Elza said. "Never did catch the name. I think it was Nathan, or Macon, or Jacob, or some Biblical name like that. I have to admit – I wasn't paying much attention at that point in the story, so the name's kinda fuzzy."

"All the same," Rita said, "it's too bad that Wesker's dead now. I'd love to see him stuck with having to pay child support and all that. I know plenty of officers at the RPD who would have loved to have served him that writ!" And with that she laughed.

"That's right," Elza said. "He died up at the mansion earlier this year, didn't he?"

Rita suddenly stopped laughing. "Yeah. His was another body that went unrecovered in all that mess. Destroyed in that 'gas pipeline explosion' – hah! And there was all of Beta Team ... and Alpha Team caught up in it, too .... Rebecca checking out, and Chris and Barry both coming out of there looking like Death warmed over, and poor Jill was so messed up she was in the hospital for a month." Rita now looked thoughtful, and a note of concern crept into her voice. "Jill was still on medical rest leave when the Outbreak went down. I hope she survived."

"Yeah," Elza agreed. "I hope we survive, too."

* * * * *

The Loading Door office whooshed open and shut again as Rita and Elza came back inside. Kevin was leaning against the wall by the broken photocopier. His arms were folded, and he appeared to have been lost in thought until the door opened. He now looked over at the two women. His face betrayed just how tired and dejected he must have been feeling. "Get any sleep?" he mumbled.

"No, but at least I've rested a bit," Elza responded. When Kevin did not respond himself, she continued. "Rita told me what happened with the alarm. It was a good idea, Kevin. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Not good enough," Kevin said. He turned his head, and looked down at a bloody scattering of paperwork on the floor about two feet in front of him. "Some leader I've turned out to be."

"Hey," Rita said, walking around Elza so she could go to Kevin. She stopped beside him and put her hands on his shoulders to comfort him. "It's not your fault. Maybe if Umbrella had known we were coming, they'd have changed the fire alarms out for us, eh?" She was smiling as Kevin looked up at her, and after a moment he managed a faint smile in reply.

Elza left the two of them alone and walked on around the partition. Linda was sitting on the floor in the cubbyhole between the last desk and the stack of boxes. She was fast asleep, her head thrown back and slanted on her right shoulder, and there was a line of drool running from the corner of her mouth down to a stain on the shoulder of her blue coverall. Elza smiled, them moved on down the line of desks. John and Sherry were still playing the videogame on the computer, only now they had traded places and John was giving it a try.

"Go, Uncle John!" Sherry was saying, as Elza walked up to join them. "You got it! You got it! You got—"

There was a sudden squawk out of the computer's speaker, and the screen's display exploded in pixellated pyrotechnics. Two words now flashed up over them in letters that dripped green blood on a green screen. YOU DIED. "Uurrrgghh!" John groaned. "I almos' had it! Mah fat fingers are too big fer playin' on dis here keyboard." He looked over to Sherry, then noticed that Elza was back with them. "Hiya, babe--" he began, then cut himself off. "Sorry, Miss Elza. Gets anah sleep?"

"Not a wink," Elza admitted. She smiled at them both. "Looks like you two are having fun."

"I got high score!" Sherry boasted, with one of the biggest grins Elza had ever seen on her face.

"An' I just got kilt," John said. "Here, Sherry. Ise bettah lets you have at dis thing agin."

With that the big man scooted the chair back and prepared to stand up. As he did so, however, several of the fingers on one of his hands accidentally brushed across the keyboard.

D-d-d-d-di-di-di-ding!

Elza visibly started. A fraction of a second later both Kevin and Rita's heads popped around the far end of the partition. The sound had also awakened Linda, who first looked up at Kevin and Rita and then down at the others, wondering what the commotion was all about.

"Do that again," Elza said urgently.

"What?" John said, halfway out of his seat and looking perplexed.

"What you just did," Elza insisted. "Do it again!"

By now Kevin and Rita were down at the end of the partitioned work area with them, with Linda trailing close behind. Everyone was crowded down there around a very confused-looking John, who promptly sat back down. "All ah did wuz git up," he said. He stood up to emphasize his point.

"No, you didn't," Elza said. "Your hand hit the keyboard the first time you did it. Do it again, and this time try to do it exactly the way you did the first time." She gave John an encouraging look. "Please?"

"Okey-dokey." John sat back down. One hand went to the back of his neck and he scratched for a moment or two. He then lowered it and began to get back up. This time, however, his movements were exaggerated - like those of a bad actor in an old-time silent movie - and about one-third of the way through getting up, a hesitant hand hovered over the keyboard for a second or two before going down.

D-d-d-d-di-di-di-ding!

John stood straight up, pulling back his hand as if it he had just touched a hot skillet. Everyone looked at each other. Sherry was the first one to speak. "That's the sound it makes whenever you press the wrong key to play," she said. "It always does that. Is that a big deal?"

"It most certainly is," Elza said triumphantly. She looked at the others. "I think we just found your bell alarm, Kevin."

* * * * *

"Is you sure dis is a good idear, boss?" John asked. Both of them were standing in front of the sliding security door to the Admin Building Lobby. It was the same where all of them had come when they had first gained access to this part of the building. Both of them had their guns out. John had his police shotgun held in a firm grip, while Kevin held his SPAS-12 at the ready.

"No," Kevin said grimly, "but we gotta find out if this is gonna work, and there's no windows in this part of the building."

"Yeah," John sighed nervously. "Well, I guess I'm ah ready as Ise ever be."

Kevin nodded, then looked back down the hall. Rita was standing in the middle of the hallway right at the point where the small side hall branched off towards the Loading Office. She had her own pistol out and drawn, too. "Okay," Kevin called down to her. "Let's do it."

RIta nodded, then looked at Linda, who was standing in the open door of the Security Office. It would not slide shut as long as she stood there, breaking the beams of the electric eyes that caused it to close automatically whenever the doorway was clear. "They're ready," Rita called down to Linda.

Linda turned and spoke loudly into Loading Office. "They're ready, Miss Walker."

Sitting at the keyboard of the computer on the other side of the nearby partition, with Sherry watching while standing by her side, Elza pulled the microphone down as close to the keyboard as she could, then pressed and held one of its lettered keys.

DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI—

It sounded like a real bell alarm, broadcasting loudly as it was from every intercom speaker, both inside and outside, in that part of the Factory. Of course it wasn't exact, but it was damn close. Either Linda or Elza could probably have talked all day about the pitch, frequency, tone, oscillation, and all of that, but none of that mattered to Kevin. The only thing that mattered to him was whether or not their faux fire alarm was going to work. He looked again at John, and then nodded. Both men leveled their guns at the Lobby door.

"Now!" Kevin said, and pressed the wall-mounted control stud to open the door.

The heavy metal security door whooshed open. Both Kevin and John stood their ground, feet planted and guns raised, ready to deal instant death to any lickers that might have happened to be ready to pounce from that side of the door. Nothing happened. They could see clearly into the debris and filth-covered ruin of the Lobby itself, and the stairs beyond the single reception or security desk that led up to the alley catwalk door. There was not a single licker in sight. They could hear them, though. It wasn't the same kind of worshipful crooning that they had done whenever the Regent Licker had still been alive and present in there. This time it was on a deeper and more resonant note, with an almost thrumming quality to it, and it made Kevin think of his motorcycle's engine idling. Kevin gave John a nod and a satisfied look, and John grinned. "Looks like it's gonna work, boss," he whispered.

"Let's make sure," Kevin said, as he stepped into the Lobby itself.

Kevin had only taken a few paces into the Lobby when he suddenly stopped,. He could see both the whole Lobby and what of the parking lot outside was visible through the cracked, bullet-ridden safety glass and the one panel that had shattered completely. Looking back at John, who now stood in the doorway, he pointed both outside through the missing glass panel and to the far corner of the Lobby beyond the stairs. After that, he gingerly turned around and made his way back to the side security door. Aside from a little bit of rustling from the far corner and the sound of claws clicking on the tile floor, nothing happened. Both Kevin and John now backed through the side door, guns still raised, until they were fully back in the Green Hallway again. Once they were back inside, Kevin raised a hand and hit the control stud for the door. It immediately whooshed shut, and the two men visibly relaxed. "Okay, Rita," Kevin called down the hall without looking, as he wiped the sweat off of his brow with his gun hand. "You can tell Elza to stop now." He grinned maliciously. "Damnit, but I think this is really gonna work."

* * * * *

Elza's plan was simplicity in itself, but the way she intended to accomplish her goal might have made Rube Goldberg nod his head in understanding. After experimenting with the videogame for a few minutes, she had determined that all the keys save the biggest ones easiest to reach, and also with the exception of the cursor keys, made the dinging noise when pressed. The layout made sense, as it was common to many videogames, but that was going to make things difficult for Elza. Difficult, but not impossible – for if the space bar had been available, or even one of the larger corner keys, Elza would have simply laid a book or some heavy object on it and that would have been that. Now she was going to have to come up with something a big more convoluted to press and hold at least one of the lettered and numbered keys, without hitting any of the keys for the actual game, long enough for all of them to get to the other warehouse. While she was doing this, everyone else was getting their gear together and making ready for a quick evacuation, and Sherry was readying Elza's under her instruction. At the same time, Elza reached up to the transmitter for the area intercom system, then picked up the microphone on the stand. The stand had a round base, but the squared-off shape of the old-style microphone itself might help in that regard – although its smooth metal surface and rounded corners and edges weren't going to help. She cleared some space on the desk on the right side of the keyboard, then tried to set the microphone there. Its cord would not reach that far. Undaunted, she moved the computer back as far as it would go, then moved over the keyboard about a foot. There was now enough space to the left of the keyboard for her to sit the microphone and stand down beside it. This time, there was no problem with the cord; it was long enough and with slack to spare. After making sure that the intercom system was still off, Elza carefully leaned over the combined microphone and stand until the mike itself touched the keyboard.

Di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di—

So far, so good; however, there was a problem. Elza noticed right away that the microphone wanted to roll and slide off of the keyboard. She caught it before it could, then set the microphone and stand back up,. With that, the dinging stopped. "Sherry," she said, "can you get me my pliers?"

"Yes, Miss Elza," Sherry said, and promptly scampered down to where Linda had left her carry bag. She was back a few seconds later with a medium-sized pair of pliers with dipped red rubber handles. "Here you go," she said, handing them to Elza.

"Thanks," Elza said. She opened the pliers to their fullest extent, then locked them around the clip end of the microphone stand. It took a bit of straining, for it was on tight, but a minute or so later Elza had finished unscrewing the microphone from the stand. She now set it on the keyboard ... and listened to it sound for a few times before it promptly slid down onto the space bar. With that, the game reset back to the title screen. Elza cursed under her breath so Sherry couldn't make out the words.

It was at this point when Kevin rounded the turn at the end of the partition and trotted down the line of desks towards Elza. He stopped once he reached her and Sherry. "We're all set," he said. "How's it goin'?"

"Not so good," Elza admitted. "I can't make this microphone stay on the keyboard. The metal surface makes it slippery, and the guy who must have been using this every day had really greasy fingers."

"Would a rag or piece of cloth help?"

"Maybe, but not much. The angle of the keyboard is an issue, too. It's already all the way down."

"What about taping it down?"

"I'd try it if we still had some duct tape, or something similar, but we've already used all we have. The only thing I've seen in here so far is scotch tape, and that won't hold anything."

"It will if you use enough of it," Kevin observed. "It's not like us or anybody else is gonna use it for anything else." He looked at the microphone, now disconnected, that Elza had set beside the keyboard. "Say ... stick it in the middle, and then wrap it as tight as you can with as much tape as you can, as if you were using a roll of clear wrap to secure the sides of a loaded pallet."

Elza thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. That would work."

"Let's do it," Kevin said. "Where's the tape?"

"On that first desk," Elza said, "under the top shelf in the back corner. I think the dispenser is about half full."

Kevin trotted down and retrieved the tape, and then brought it back with him. Elza had already picked up the keyboard and had put the microphone in position, holding the keyboard at the proper angle to keep it from sliding. The speaker was busy dinging away, but everyone ignored it. Kevin now took the tape dispenser, pulled out a strip of clear tape that must have been a good two feet long without breaking it, and then carefully attached this to both the microphone and the keyboard. Once that initial piece was in place, he then began rapidly circling the tape dispenser around and around both the keyboard and the microphone, laying on more tape with each circuit. All Elza had to do was hold both steady with her extended arms, so Kevin could work the tape dispenser with a minimum of effort. Once he almost wrapped some of her fingers along with the microphone, but he caught himself just in time. By the time he was done, he had used all of the tape on the roll in the dispenser.

"There," Kevin said, smiling. "I don't think it's going anywhere now."

Elza nodded, then carefully set the combined keyboard and microphone back on the desk. The computer's speaker had been busy dinging away all this while like a madman on crack, with no sign of stopping. "Hope it doesn't blow a fuse," Kevin observed.

"If it does," Elza remarked, "we're toast. Sherry?"

Sherry handed Elza her gear a piece at a time, and Elza rearranged it both on her person and in her armor vest. Kevin helped her with the weapons at Sherry's request. "I doan wanna touch a gun," she said. "I'm too little."

"You are now," Elza said, "but one day, Sherry, when you get big enough, you'll probably be able to handle any gun you want – if you learn how, that is."

"I don't know," Sherry said, looking doubtful.

"Let's not worry about it," Kevin said. "Let's just get out of here and move on, okay?"

Elza nodded. She reached over to the intercom transmitter and flipped the switch.

DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI-DI—

The racket was almost deafening within the confines of the Loading Office. "Let's go!" Kevin shouted. The three of them ran down the line of desks and around the partition to join the others waiting on the other side. The others looked at Kevin expectantly as his group joined with theirs.

Kevin motioned them in close, so he could be heard above the racket that their faux fire alarm was making. "We'll head out through the Lobby and through the gate in the front parking lot," he half-shouted. "It's the shortest route. Stick together, walk deliberately, go as quickly as you can. No running. I don't want to attract attention with the excess motion. Just try to look like your a licker out on a brisk Sunday stroll."

"Ya wants us ta crawl on all fours, too, boss?" John asked.

John was serious and Kevin knew it. He shook his head. "Not necessary. Just look like you know what you're doing and that what's happening is perfectly natural. Everyone ready?" All of them nodded, and those who had weapons pulled and readied them. "All right," Kevin said, forcing his best trademark grin. "Let's go walkies."

* * * * *

The lickers assembled in the Admin Building Lobby and the two groups out in the parking lot hardly noticed when the Lobby side door whooshed open, and through it stepped six humans of various ages, shapes, and sizes. The humans kept their heads forward and their paces steady, although they would glance nervously ahead or to the side from time to time, scoping out the three different groups of lickers. One or two of the lickers on the edges of the group by the stairs turned and hissed at the humans, as they strode through the Lobby and out through the broken front glass panel into the parking lot, but the rest simply ignored them. All of their attention rest was focused on the Factory intercom speakers high overhead, from which Elza's faux fire alarm was ringing out very much like the real thing.

Once they were outside, the group turned to the right and walked single file at as rapid a pace as possible to the postern gate near the security hut door. It was beside the full-sized gate in the high fence that surrounded the area. Here they had a bit of a problem, for the lot had narrowed and the other outside intercom speaker for the parking lot was mounted on the very corner of the Admin Building that was across from the security hut. There was a regular gang of at least two dozen lickers on this side of the gate gathered under that one speaker and crooning to it, and Kevin's group could hear and see even more on the other side of the gate proper. Two were on the side and one was on the roof of the trailer where Linda had been hiding during the earlier licker attack, and they could see another on the closed and locked trailer behind that one.

"This isn't good," Rita whispered loudly at Kevin.

"Single file," Kevin ordered. "Hug the security hut until you get to the side gate, then through and to the loading dock stairs as quick as you can."

There was simply no way to keep from getting close to the assembled lickers this time and make it through the gate. From time to time some would turn from the group to look at them with sightless absent eyes, their teeth dripping with a lot of nasty-looking drool as they hissed loudly in a clear warning to stay away. Even so, they did not attack. They were under the imperative that their new faux Regent was laying down, and it had called them to attention for future orders. They were not intelligent enough to question that order, nor did they wonder why it was being endlessly repeated when practically every licker on this side of the Factory was present. It was the imperative of the new Regent, and they had no choice but to obey. That is why they did nothing but hiss their warnings, as each human slid nervously past along the security hut wall and through the small gate, It was the imperative. They had to obey.

Things were no better on the other side of the postern gate, once everyone had gotten through it. There were even more lickers gathered on this side of the gate and fence as their had been on the other side, and the available space for passage was even more constrained. That is why the same process repeated itself. The humans got as close as they could get to the large construction dumpster on the end of the parking lot farthest away from the lickers and walked along it, with outliers among the crowded lickers frequently turning to hiss and bare their fangs at them. None attacked, though, and everyone made it to the steps of the loading dock without incident.

There was another group of lickers both on and gathered around the loading dock. Fortunately, the outside speaker for the Factory intercom system was located high on the corner of the warehouse at the far end of the dock. Therefore no lickers below or on the loading dock were in close enough range to be bothered by the passage of the six humans. They rapidly made their way up the short flight of stairs to the lone regular-sized door beside the large metal loading door that ran almost the length of the dock, and then gathered in front of it.

"So far, so good," Rita said nervously, looking around at the various gatherings of lickers. She thought she saw signs of another group on the far side of the trailers, gathered by the fence and gate that led into the alley behind the Admin Building. "Unlock that door, Kevin, and let's get inside before something happens."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Kevin said grimly, as he produced the warehouse key they had retrieved earlier from the Loading Office.

It was at that exact moment when Elza's faux alarm system died, and the Factory went quiet. That is, all save the lickers – who were now released from the faux Regent's Imperative and could now act as instinct normally drove them. They saw the six humans gathered at the south end of the loading dock ... and immediately every one of them turned in their direction, bared their drool-covered fangs, and began to hiss violently.

* * * * *

The personal computer sitting on top of the farthest desk behind the partition in the Loading Office was one that dated back to the early days of the second generation of such machines. It had been the pride and joy of the major corporation that had both designed and marketed it, and they had deliberately overbuilt it so that it could perform at top efficiency in rough industrial environments such as the Umbrella Factory Complex's Warehouse District. However, there is a limit to the lifetime of any machine made by human hands no matter how well designed, and this old "beemer" was now on its last legs. It had been upgraded several times to keep pace with changing technology, but two parts of it that had never been replaced were its original Hercules graphics card and matching original corporate green-screen monitor, and its original power supply. It had been on almost continuously since it had been placed in the Loading Office for the use of the late records clerk who had worked there, and it had likewise been on almost continuously at every other location within Umbrella where it had served. Unknown to the six Outbreak survivors who had last used it, that old original power supply was now on the verge of failure. It had given no obvious sign of this fact, thanks to a brushless fan that had been installed during some prior upgrade, but now that fan was spinning as fast as it possibly could and losing the battle against the heat rapidly building up inside the computer. Elza had inadvertently pushed it too far back on the desk when she had been working on coming up with her faux fire alarm, and this had restricted the airflow available to dissipate heat from the power supply's heat sinks. This in turn created the overheated conditions that now existed inside the computer's casing. Like any other piece of electro-mechanical machinery having to cope with excessive heat buildup, the time soon came when it simply couldn't cope any more. The fan was the first to go, and a loud pop! sounded in the empty Loading Office as the fan motor blew and its blades spun to a stop. Seconds later, with the heat inside the casing now rising even higher and faster than before, the computer's motherboard and aged video card both began to overheat. Digital gibberish began to appear on the screen as smoke began to seep from several cracks in the case. A few short seconds later, the power supply's main fuse blew and burned out. The computer automatically shut off due to the immediate loss of power ... and that was the reason why Elza's faux fire alarm had died.

Kevin didn't waste any time once the alarm stopped sounding on the intercom. He slammed the key into the lock, unlocked and opened the door in a single motion, and practically shoved Rita inside. "MOVE!!!" he roared, and the others acted immediately. They piled through the door as fast as they could while Kevin held it open, Magnum raised and ready to fire, as the three groups of lickers nearby whirled about as one and came at them like three tidal waves trying to crash onto the same beach. Even more began to skitter over the fences or climbed rapidly along them in their haste to get to that door before the humans could get through. The one on the closest parked trailer even tried to broad jump the distance, but Kevin's Magnum roared and it fell twitching to the pavement. By then, Kevin was the only one left on the loading dock. He rushed through the doorway and yanked the door shut behind him. A split second later, even as he whirled about and raised his Magnum again, there were the sound of multiple bodies impacting on the closed door. This was accompanied by a regular cacophony of hisses and frustrated animal yowls, and there was also the uncomfortable sound of multiple hardened claws of diverse sizes being raked accross both the door and the outside walls. Both held, however – for both the regular and loading doors were made of heavy reinforced steel, and the walls had been overbuilt with an extra layer of metal between their outer siding and the sheet rock that lined the inside where the survivors were gathered. Now they heard claws and banging along the large loading door beyond the interior wall that for now cut them off from the inside, but fortunately it was not accompanied by the sound of ripping metal. The loading door was going to hold. The survivors huddled in the center of the room where they now found themselves, forming a protective circle around Sherry and keeping their guns raised and at the ready.

It took a long time, but the racket outside finally subsided. It never went away completely - lickers are after all persistent beings, and will never abandon a hunt once they have sited their prey - but natural animal caution and patience seemed to be taking hold. They were settling in for another siege. The only thing that had changed was the building where their prey was located – but it was no matter. Like the late alligator in the West Tank Room of the Sewers that Elza had encountered, they were prepared to wait ... and when it came to such matters, like that late alligator, lickers could wait a very long time.

* * * * *

Once the noises outside had subsided down to the point of the occasional claw-swipe-on-metal or the infrequent breathy hiss by the door, the survivors relaxed. Linda sank to her knees and let her arms fall open. "Don't ever ask me to do anything like that again," she said.

"Me, neither," Rita said, nodding.

"Me, too," John added. "Whut da hell happened?"

"Something must have gone bad with the computer," Elza said. She moved around until she was in a sitting crouch, with one foot under her and the other forward, just in case she needed to spring up for any reason. "Could have been anything. Power supply, bad circuit on the motherboard, anything. It was an old PC, after all, and I bet the thing's been on ever since Umbrella bought it."

"Well I for one am glad it lasted as long as it did," Kevin said. He too had changed his position, sitting on his rump with one leg forward and the other bent, and with his gun arm draped on his bent knee. He looked at the others. "Okay, we're here, and there's now no going back. Now what?"

"Is that a question or a statement?" Rita asked. She was sitting with her knees drawn up, looking at Kevin. She had already holstered her pistol, and had both arms locked around her bent legs.

"Both," Kevin drawled. "I have my own ideas, of course, but a pretty little bird I know once told me that a good leader takes suggestions. So I'm takin' 'em. What now?"

"Cheep, cheep," Rita said, smiling. "I say we go looking for that Underground Lab entrance. It's pretty obvious we're not going to get out of the Factory above ground, what with all of those lickers out there ready to pounce as soon as we show our faces, and it looks like they can't break in here either. It would be the same stalemate that we were in back in the Admin Building, if it weren't for our secret little bolthole – and it's in here somewhere. It has to be – I mean, there's no where else left it can be. I think we've got just enough strength left to do that. That's why I say find the secret entrance, go down in the Lab, and find us a place to hole up and get some sleep as soon as possible. Once we've rested, we can find that main Lab corridor Linda was talking about, and then use it to move to another spot in the Factory. After that, we can head to the surface again and go with your original plan, Kevin. Find some decent transportation and get the hell outta Dodge."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Kevin said, grinning. "Linda? You're the Umbrella expert here. I know you warned us about going down into the Lab, but it looks like we don't have any choice now. What do you have to say about it?"

Linda looked thoughtful. "We don't know what's still lurking down there, and that's where Umbrella was doing all of its research and experimentation with the T-virus and other such things. That's the scary part. Also, I wish we could use my Umbrella ID in the Lab without letting Umbrella know we're here. The Lab's systems will still be tied to Umbrella corporate, and they'd spot such usage right away." She shook her head sadly. "It's a real shame, you know. There's a train system at the bottom level of the Lab that's meant for emergency evacuations, in the case of a major incident or a reactor meltdown. Each shaft complex in the Lab has two evacuation trains whose tracks run completely under the Arklay Mountains and come out the other side on that big agricultural research station that Umbrella owns and operates over there. The whole thing started out as a cover for the train exits, of course, but it's since grown into its own bonafide research station." She laughed, and flashed a wry smile. "It would be perfect for escaping Raccoon City if I knew my ID card still worked and if we could avoid being found and picked up by the Umbrella Security Service." She looked at Kevin and sighed. "It's kinda like with you and that fire alarm. The obvious solution won't work. We're going to have to find a less obvious one that will."

"That's why I'm sticking to my plan of getting a big rig, a big truck, or a really big van to haul us all out of here." Kevin said, nodding. "Right now it's the only feasible option on the table. Even so, I'm still open to suggestions." He looked over at Elza. "Wanna add anything, Elza?"

Elza face was set in a determined mask. It was obvious she was tired, and that she was doing her best to try to hide it. It was also obvious that her pride and force of will would not let her admit it. "I agree with Rita. One last burst to find someplace to hole up, and then we call it a day for now. And if that means doing it in Umbrella's secret Lab below, well, let's do it and get it over with."

Kevin now turned and looked at John. He stared for a moment, then his face broke out in a smile. John was fiddling with his broken radio again. "Hey, John?" Kevin said firmly, and a bit louder than when he had been talking to the others. "Care to join in the discussion?"

John looked up with a startled expression, then realized everyone was staring at him. He grinned sheepishly, then put the broken radio back in his hip pocket. "Sorry," he said. "Ah cain't think hard lak you guys. Ise go wid whatevah youse guys wants ta do."

"Surely you've got something to add," Rita said, smiling at him. "C'mon, John. You're in this as much as the rest of us, and your opinion counts, too. Anything you think needs to be said we haven't already said?"

One of John's hands automatically went to the back of his neck and he began scratching. After a while, he spoke. "Ah think that if-n we're gonna go look for dat sekrit Lab entrance, we needs ta look fer sumfun obvious. Ya know – kinda a hide in plain sight kinda deal? Lak wid dat back doah key? Dey wuldn't want ter make it too sekrit, or da people who worked heah mite-a had trouble findin' it."

Linda nodded. "My thoughts exactly, Mr. Kendo. Hide in plain sight. I couldn't have put it better myself." She looked at Kevin. "That's the way we had our own access to that underground main corridor shaft downtown. There were two extra levels to one certain elevator that required a special key card to access. All of the elevators were set up the same, though, with the same dark display panels. They all lit up the same way, too – except for that one particular elevator. The lights for those two extra levels wouldn't come on unless you had keyed the elevator's card reader with that special key card. Once you did that, you could get to both the first secret level - that was our own records vault - and then the next one farther down. It was the underground access corridor. The entrance to the Underground Lab is in here somewhere. I'm certain of it."

"So you think it's going to be an elevator or lift of some kind," Kevin said, nodding.

"Most likely," Linda answered, "and it's probably a big one, too. How else would they move all of the really big bulk freight and heavy equipment up and down from the Factory to the Lab? You can't do that with that induction system we saw."

"I was wondering about that," Rita added. "I never could figure out how they were going to fit that gorilla we fought inside that thing."

"All right," Kevin said, nodding. "Our best bet is going to be to look for an large freight elevator, possibly with some kind of hidden switch or something, to access that Underground Lab." To everyone's surprise, he now looked at Sherry. "Miss Birkin? Elza told me you told her that you used to play here in the Factory when you were younger. Is there anything you can tell us that might help us out?"

Sherry looked around at the others, then back again at Kevin. For a long time she didn't say anything. Finally, she nodded. "Uncle John and Miss Merton are right. It is an elevator – and I think I know how to work it."

\-------------------------

Chapter 20 - Reversal

The five adults who were gathered together in the front foyer of the Factory district's Main Warehouse were all looking at the little girl in their midst. The one looking at her the hardest was former Umbrella employee and junior researcher Linda Merton. Up until now, she had been convinced of the fact that she was the only one among them who had any knowledge at all about Umbrella's secret Underground Lab. Now that she thought about it, though, it made sense. Sherry was the daughter of both of the Doctors Birkin. It would make sense that she knew some things, and that they would bring her to work with them from time to time. She also had to admit that how to get to and operate that freight elevator that led down to the Lab, one she was sure was in here somewhere, was one detail she was lacking in her kit of general-purpose Umbrella knowledge. That is why after Sherry had made her startling revelation, and everyone had taken a few seconds to catch their breath, Linda was the first to speak. "How could you know?" she asked bluntly. "They would have had this whole area secured before the Outbreak, and the last thing they would have allowed inside were kids playing."

"They didn't," Sherry said. "But right before Dad was reassigned to his new lab, they tore the old warehouse down and built this new one in its place. It's a lot bigger than the old one. And they were usin' the elevator before they finished putting up the walls for the new warehouse, too. My friends and I, we saw 'em use it."

Elza leaned forward somewhat, propping one arm on her knee and resting her chin on her fist in an almost-classic thinking pose. "Tell us about the elevator, Sherry, and what you saw."

Instead, Sherry stopped. She looked at Linda for a long time, then at Elza, then at the others, then back at Linda again, and finally at Elza. "Is it all right?" she asked. "I mean ... can we trust Miss Linda now?"

Everyone looked at each other. It was Linda who finally spoke. "It's okay, Sherry. I understand. I've behaved rather badly recently, I threatened you, and I put Miss Walker in serious danger. It's no wonder you don't trust me, even though I'm trying to make good on all of that. I'm not sure the others fully trust me yet, either." She stood up, then walked to the back of the room, where there was a familiar-looking sliding security door in the back right corner. "I tell you what. Why don't I go explore the warehouse, and that way you can talk freely? Will that be okay, Sherry?"

Elza promptly stood up too. "Are you sure that's wise, Linda?"

Linda smiled sadly, shaking her head. "No, Miss Walker. I'm not – but you guys may need the knowledge that apparently only Sherry has in her head. She won't tell you as long as I'm in here with her, since she still doesn't trust me." She pulled out her pistol. "I should be all right. I've got this, and all of the lickers are still outside."

"All that we know," Rita said, also standing. Kevin rose with her, and John followed half a second later. "You don't know what's in there, Linda. Now that we're at the focal point of this storm, as I seem to recall a certain someone saying, it's not a good idea to go anywhere alone. We did it back at the station because we had to, because there were so few of us then and we didn't have radios, but now it's probably best to remain grouped up."

"Ah'll go wid her," John promptly volunteered.

Kevin looked around at the others, then nodded. "Okay, John. You'll play escort to Linda while she, uhmmm, takes a stroll. Elza, can you loan him your radio again?" He kept talking even as Elza pulled Rita's radio out of its pouch on her armor vest and handed it to John, who stuck it in the back pocket opposite of the one where he carried his broken one. "Try not to go too far, and don't go anywhere we can't find you or get to you easy. If you see that elevator, sing out. If you get into trouble, sing out. If you get trapped somehow and can't get out, sing out."

"Got it, boss," John said. He picked up his shotgun and checked it to make sure it was fully loaded. At the same time, Linda checked her own pistol. For someone who hadn't known anything about guns prior to the Outbreak, she had come remarkably far in a very short time – thanks largely to Elza's instruction back in the Sewers. Linda remained standing where she was until John walked up beside her. Once they were together, she keyed the door and it whooshed open. Nothing leapt out from behind it to ambush them, and they walked through without incident into the warehouse proper. The door whooshed shut again, and with that Sherry was alone with the remaining adults.

"Now, Sherry," Kevin said kindly, "would you mind telling us about that elevator?"

* * * * *

It turned out that Kevin's group of Outbreak survivors had been mistaken in their initial impressions of the Main Warehouse, or Warehouse One – the one had been the first they had seen upon exiting the Sewers. That was because they had seen it from end-on, with both a wrecked tractor-trailer rig and the area's high fences partially obstructing their view. As it turned out, it was bigger by far than they had first realized. It was at least as big as the warehouse with the induction system, if not bigger. What they had seen of it behind the loading dock now seemed more like an annex of sorts, and was most likely the only part of the original and smaller warehouse that Sherry said had once been here when she was younger. The new warehouse proper ran beyond the high fences that corralled the two parking lots, and along and down Kitteridge Street all the way to the end of the block. In terms of width it was as wide as the annex, loading dock, and loading dock parking area combined.

The place where the survivors had first entered was known as the Forklift Room. That was because the warehouse's forklift used to be stored here back in the days of the original and smaller warehouse. It was not used for that anymore due to the rebuilding and expansion; however, it was still called the Forklift Room and still labeled as such on the door inside the warehouse. It was as good an example as any of any number of naming oddities in commercial, military, and utility installations one cares to name – where an odd or obviously out-of-place name is used for a location that now serves a completely different purpose than it had in the past. One could even make out an outline on the room's right-hand wall - if you were standing with your back to the door to the loading dock - where there had once been a mid-sized cantilever door to allow the forklift passage in and out, and other oddities in the dock end of the left-hand wall pointed to traces of old hookups and service connections. Nowadays the Forklift Room was little more than a foyer or anteroom to keep off of the warehouse working floor those things that didn't need to be there. This was where the warehouse workers had their personal lockers, and there were also bulletin boards with various announcements from both Umbrella corporate and the local chapter of the dockworker's and teamster's unions. There was a snack machine and a soda machine, as well as a water fountain – and those three had been welcome sights to Kevin's group once they had caught their breath and looked around. Two doors in the left-hand wall apparently led to male and female restrooms, with steps in front of each betraying the fact that both the restrooms and their associated plumbing had been added after the base slab for the older warehouse had been laid, thus necessitating raised floors for both bathrooms to allow for it.

The warehouse itself was not all that different from any other warehouse, and was built in very much the same fashion as the one that contained the Lab's induction system. Even a casual eye, though, could see where the beams and bracing of the original smaller warehouse stopped and those of the newer and larger one began. One could look at the floor and see the filled-in break in the polished concrete where the old foundation slab ended and the newer and much larger one began. From the way these and other such clues were arranged, it looked as if Umbrella had simply knocked out the back wall of the old warehouse and tacked on a even bigger building to it. Also, unlike the other warehouse, there was no railed crane running the length of the building, either in the old or new sections, nor had there ever been. This was a storage warehouse, pure and simple. It was two-and-a-half stories tall, but only the back third of the warehouse had a second story. The rest of the open space between the back third and the loading dock annex was dominated by loaded industrial shelving and both stacked pallets and stacked crates – sometimes intermingled, depending on their contents and whether or not they could bear the load of being stacked. Anything that could not be stacked for whatever reason had been forked under, on, or on top of various sections of heavy-duty industrial shelving units. A long and wide center aisle ran the length of the warehouse from the loading dock annex all the way to the other end, and there were side aisles almost as wide along each wall. Most of the freight shelving was on the left side of the center aisle, while most of the standalone pallets and stacked crates were on the right. The side aisle running along the wall facing Kitteridge Street was longer than the other, for part of the other side - the part closest to the loading dock annex - had been carved out into the two restrooms and a few small offices. As if not to waste any more space than necessary, a well-made wooden staircase ran up to the top of this office area and even over the Forklift Room. This entire "roof" area had been fenced in with chicken wire and turned into a secured storage area for small goods of either valuable or volatile nature. Back down on the working floor, in the older and smaller section of the warehouse, a heavy-duty battery-operated forklift was parked down by the loading bay annex and hooked up to its charger. Again, it was fairly typical for the average modern storage warehouse. The only thing that looked out-of-place to the casual eye were the two mobile scissor lifts parked in two different cross aisles between the center aisle and the Kitteridge Street side aisle. Assorted tools by and on both, as well as a shattered mercury arc lamp next to one and two lights missing in the above ceiling, testified as to why they had been parked there prior to the Outbreak.

Linda stopped in the loading bay, just outside of the now-closed security door back to the foyer - or Forklift Room as it was still called. She looked over at John, who had stopped beside her. "So you're going to be my parole officer," she said with a sly smile.

"No, ma'am," John said earnestly. "It's lak da boss said. Ahm jes' s'pposed ta protect ya in case dem things git in heah, or dere's sumfun else inside we doan know 'bout yet."

Linda chuckled. "All right, then," she said, still smiling. "While we're waiting for Sherry to get through telling them what she doesn't want me to know, do you mind if we do a little sightseeing?"

"T'won't be much to see," John observed. "Ah warehouse iz ah warehouse. Seen plenty uv 'em mahself."

"Oh, come on, John," Linda said. "Do you know how long it's been since I've been in a warehouse? Maybe you can give me the grand tour, since you know so much about warehouses already." She pointed over to the forklift. "We could even go hot-rodding on the forklift, in case you really get bored."

John finally cracked a smile. "Dat's not ah good idear, Miss Murdon. Ya run into one of dem tall pallets an' hit it with yer forks, an' you could bring da whole thing down on ya an' get hurt. You cud even get kilt."

Linda nodded, still smiling. "Well, I guess we'll just have to hoof it." She started to make the turn around the outside walls that enclosed the foyer, bathrooms, and inner offices, but stopped. She looked again at the forklift. "I wonder if it still works. We might need it, you know."

John walked over to the forklift, then checked both its connections and its charger. "Yes'm," he said, looking up at her. "It'll run jes ...." He stopped speaking, and his eyes opened wide. From where he was standing, he could see around Linda and on into the deeps of the warehouse proper.

"What is it?" Linda said, noting his reaction. When he continued to simply stare, she too turned and looked down the long center aisle towards the other end of the warehouse. For a moment her face started to take on the same dumbfounded expression, but then it transformed into a grin. "Well, I'll be damned. Hide in plain sight indeed!"

At the far end of the warehouse, two thirds of the way down, where the edge of the second floor began and continued all the way to the back of the building, the caged lattice frame of a very large freight elevator straddled the center aisle of the warehouse. It appeared to have been deliberately placed for the easiest possible access from the loading dock annex, with only one moderate left-hand turn required by any forklift operator with or without a load. It stood there like a lighthouse, as if it were beckoning or calling them, inviting both Linda and John to walk that center aisle all the way down to the standalone control panel located to its right, and thereby be able to discover its secrets.

John finally found words to say. "Miss ... Miss Murdon! We gots ta tell da udders! Miss-- hey! Miss Murdon?! Wheah's you goin'?!"

Linda Merton was not listening. Instead, she was walking at a very brisk trot down the center aisle of the warehouse towards the freight elevator. John immediately took off after her, but his progress was slowed by his stopping to look down the side aisles just in case any unseen foes might be hidden there, waiting to leap out and pounce on them both. Linda was not bothering to look at all. She seemed very sure of herself, and as it turned out there was nothing lurking in ambush. They made it all the way down to the elevator without incident, and with the only sounds breaking the silence being their own footfalls and John's low-key calling after Linda, alternating between begging her to wait up or to call in.

Linda stopped in front of the control panel. She looked over at it for a moment, then looked up at the elevator. There was a satisfied smile on her face as she took in the view. "Well, Annette," she said to herself. "You were going to make sure I never got the chance to get here – weren't you, you jealous bitch? Yet here I am on the threshold about to cross over, and with the help of your own daughter to boot. Oh, such delicious irony!"

Sweat beading his brow, John finally made it to the elevator. "Miss Murdon!" he said, a bit out of breath. "Don't touch dat! We needs ta call da udders! Miss Sherry knows what to do!"

Linda nodded. "I know, John. I'm not going to touch it. I'm just ... what do you call it? Savoring a few seconds of a hard-earned personal victory while it lasts. Allowing the old me one last chance to enjoy something that it justly earned, before I send her away for good."

"Huh?" John said. He was completely clueless as to what the Umbrella woman was babbling about.

As if on cue, a yellow light began to flash on the elevator control console, and the low throbbing sound of a motor at work kicked in at the same time. Linda started back. "What th—?" she began.

"I said doan touch dat!" John exclaimed.

Linda looked at him, her own shock clearly evident. "I didn't! You saw me! I didn't touch a thing! I was just standing here—"

John quickly bulled his way in beside her, none-too-gently shoving her to one side as he took her place at the control panel. He looked at the panel indicators, and then his brow furrowed. "Well, whatevah happened," he said in a worried tone, "someone or somethin' is cumin' UP the elevator from yer sekrit Lab – an' it'll be here any second!"

"The radio!" Linda exclaimed, as she pulled out her pistol and backed away.

John let go of the front grip of the shotgun and fished in his back pocket for the radio. He pulled it out, then realized he had grabbed the wrong radio. He took two steps back from the control panel while sticking the broken radio back in its pocket, then tried to reach around behind himself to grab the other one. He was too late. Even as his fingers brushed across the tip of its antenna, the top of the freight elevator came into view ... and then the elevator itself ... and then the THING that was riding inside it. The doors automatically came open as the elevator came to a stop ... and then its occupant stepped outside.

* * * * *

"Now, Sherry," Kevin said kindly, "would you mind telling us about that elevator?"

Sherry looked at the door through which Linda and John had just gone. "I guess it's all right now," she said, then turned back to look at the three adults who remained with her. "The elevator is at the back of the warehouse, where the second story begins. There's a control panel to the side, but you gotta have a key to activate it. They keep it in one of the offices on the other side of the restrooms – or at least they did last time I was here."

Elza rolled her eyes. "Here we go again." she grumbled – then smiled. "I'm sorry, Sherry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm just tired of having to solve one damn puzzle or side quest after another, some of which almost get me killed sometimes. You know?!" she said, giving the others a frustrated look.

"Nectar for the brain," Rita said, smiling, "and the exercise you get is ambrosia for your soul."

Elza gave her a cross look. "You're joking – right?"

"No, silly, I'm dead serious." Rita said, then broke into a wide grin. "Of course I'm joking. Just trying to keep things lively. I'm sorry. I didn't know you got so cross whenever you were so tired."

Elza shook her head, then bowed it slightly and put a hand up to her forehead. "I wish I could have gotten a nap back at the Admin Building." She looked over at the vending machines, then at the others. "Anybody got some change? Maybe they've got some Dew®, or something else with lots of caffeine or sugar. Hell, I could even drink a good, strong cup of straight black coffee right now, as tired as I am."

"Bleargh!" Sherry said, making a face. "It's no good unless you put some milk or some sweetener in it."

"And since when did little girls like you start drinking coffee, Miss Birkin?" Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The Mother Superior at the Academy lets us have a little now and then, although she waters it down a lot," Sherry explained. "She says that's one of the things we'll need to know as we grow up – how to drink coffee in just about every way different people make it. That's why every year, they take a little more of the sweetener and milk out. By the time you graduate, if you're not doing it already, they expect you to be able to drink at least one full cup of straight black coffee without complaining or making a face – because sometimes people need to drink it straight black, like Miss Elza."

"That sounds just like something Umbrella would want its future executives and scientists to know," Rita harrumphed. "I'll bet they also have classes in how to handle and hold your liquor once you get to high school."

"I wouldn't have minded that," Kevin said, flashing his trademark wry smile.

"I'll just bet you wouldn't," Rita said, grinning back at him.

"Guys?" Elza said tiredly. "Can we get back on track?"

"Sure," Kevin said, his face becoming a mask of seriousness once again. "Sorry." He fished in one of his pockets, the pulled out some change and handed it to Elza. "It's all I've got. Hope it's enough. Didn't want to carry a lot, and didn't know if I'd ever need it or not."

"Thanks," Elza said, taking the handful of change. She walked over to the soda machine, read the instructions, then put in some of Kevin's money and made a selection. Within two seconds a canned soda popped out, and she took both it and her change. She walked back over and handed the change and the rest of the money to Kevin, then popped the soda and slammed it down in one long go. The others watched her. Both Rita and Sherry looked amazed by what Elza was doing. Kevin's face was expressionless, and he did not so much as even bat an eye. Once Elza's performance was done, she walked over to the trash can and dispensed with her now-empty soda can, then walked back to the others. Before she sat down, however, she gave herself a sidewise punch in the stomach and let out a long and satisfying belch.

"That's disgusting," Sherry said, laughing.

"And you thought my manners were bad," Kevin added, now grinning as he looked across at Rita.

Rita sighed. "I see I've got my work cut out on the both--"

Just then a piercing scream from Linda tore through the Forklift Room, accompanied by the sound of John's shotgun being fired. Both were emphasized by a horrific bestial roar that threatened to drown them both. The shotgun fired again, and again, but cut out after the third blast – and then a man's surprised and painful yell began. All three adults had their best guns out at once and were headed for the side security door. Elza looked back at Sherry. "Go in the bathroom and HIDE!" she called, as the door slid open and all three of them poured through.

Sherry did as she was told. The ladies' room door locked from the inside, so she locked it once she was in there. After that, she tried to curl up in a ball between the toilet and the back corner. She was shaking like a leaf, and fear had seized her features once again.

* * * * *

The three came tearing around the corner and into the center aisle just in time to see John come flying backwards down the center aisle towards them on his back at high speed, legs flailing and his arms in the air. There was a clatter off to one side somewhere as his shotgun, which had been knocked out of his grasp, hit something and fell to the floor. John was moving at a slight angle, though, so he hit one of the parked pallets long before he would have reached the other three, who were now rushing towards him. They heard a loud SMACK! as he slammed into a stacked and shrink-wrapped pallet full of cardboard boxes of something or other, and all the wind was knocked out of him by the force of the impact. The pallet trembled and swayed, but did not fall. Linda was nowhere to be seen, nor was whatever it had been that had sent John flying.

The three ran to the gasping John and helped him back onto his feet. "Aaaaaghh!!" he cried, as he worked his neck. "Gawddamn, but dat hurt!"

"What was it?" Rita asked excitedly. "What happened?!"

"Big!" John gasped, still trying to catch his breath. "Strong!! ... Miss Murdon ... she screamed an' den fainted rite away! Ah tried ta stop it, but mah shells bounced off, an' den it knocked me silly wid one hand!! Jes' one hand!!!"

"All right, calm down, catch your breath!" Rita said – then to herself she added, "Good for you, Linda. You may have just saved your life." Out of the corner of one eye she saw that Kevin and Elza were already beginning to prowl about with their weapons in combat-ready carry positions, trying to locate whatever it was that had ambushed Linda and John. "That's it. Settle down, John. Now, from the beginning, and slow. Think about what you're saying before you say it. What was it?"

John's breathing had eased considerably by now, and most of his initial shock seemed to have disappeared as well. "It wuz – it was lak a man, Miss Rita ... only not a reg'lar man. Lak a hunchback, but twice as tall – an' wid muscles on dat hunchback side dat would make Arnold look lak a liddel boy! But da other side's strong, too! Dat's the one he hit me wid! I ain't never been hit so hard in mah life, not even by that huntah thing back at dah stayshun!" He now worked his jaw, rubbed it for a bit, then looked up at Rita – and for the first time since their shared Outbreak adventure together, Rita saw fear in the big man's eyes. "It's a monstah, Miss Rita – an honest-ta-gawd monstah – an' it came up from dat dere Lab wheah everone wants ta go!"

"How did it get in here?" Rita asked. She now had Kevin's Glock autopistol out and ready, the one that he had loaned her, and was eyeing both the nearby aisles and the tops of the nearby stacked crates and pallets. She left the hunting rifle slung over her shoulder, for it clearly would not do in this situation despite its power.

"It rode up in da elevatah, Miss Rita."

"Rode up?" Rita shot John a surprised look. "I thought Kevin told you guys not to mess with the elevator if you found it." Just as quickly she resumed repeatedly looking over their nearby surroundings, gun at the ready.

"We's didn't!" John protested. "I wasn't anywhere near da control panel, and Miss Murdon nevah touched it! Ah swear! I had jes' reminded her not ta, 'cuz it looked like she wuz goin' to anyway, when it cum on all by itself! We nevah touched it!!"

"All right, all right," Rita said, trying to convey a reassurance she did not feel herself. "I believe you. Now pull out your pistol and help us out. We gotta find and take care of that thing before it kills us all, okay?"

John pulled out his pistol - the one that had formerly belonged to his late friend Roy Baker - and gulped. "Ah doan' think you kin kill it, Miss Rita. Ah shot it at point-blank range wid the first three bullits in mah shotgun. They just bounced off!"

"I find that hard to believe--" Rita began, but John cut her off.

"You weren't there! I wuz!! They bounced off!!!"

"All right!" Rita snapped rather testily.

The fact that she was now mad finally got John's attention, and he settled back down. "Ise sorry, Miss Rita," he said in a much lower tone of voice, "but I wuz there."

"I believe you believe they bounced off," Rita said evenly. "Let's let it go at that, John. We'll find out the truth once we find that thing."

"If'n we's survive," John said, his pistol up and at the ready, and with his fear adding a distinct edge to his voice.

* * * * *

Together Kevin and Elza worked their way up to the freight elevator as only those skilled in small-arms combat expecting an ambush from anywhere and everywhere might do. They never said a word as they moved, but communicated by hand signals instead. Right off the bat Elza had indicated to Kevin that she was already familiar with the same combat hand language used by the military and many SWAT-type police outfits, so it was this that they were now using to communicate. He was also quickly learning to respect just how well Chris Redfield had trained her in such ways. Elza was like Kevin's right arm, and he her left, as they carefully worked their way up to the freight elevator – leaving no opening or avenue open to ambush or attack along the way. He had forgotten how tired he was, and he knew she now had, too. Right now the rush of the moment had them both in its grasp. He couldn't have asked for a better partner in this kind of situation, for not even Rita had the specialized combat training to which Elza had been exposed. The adrenaline was pumping in both of them as they did their best to come to terms with their latest foe – one that had so effortlessly laid low the physically strongest member of their group. This was going to be a challenge.

They both made it all the way to the freight elevator without incident. Just as John had described, Linda was lying sprawled off to one side. She was unharmed, but she was also completely unconscious. Elza reached her first, as she was the closest of them, and she had already checked her pulse and looked her over by the time Kevin rapidly removed himself from his last piece of cover and joined her there. He took up a kneeling ready position behind the both of them, keeping them both covered in case their unwelcome friend decided to pop up again. Kevin looked at Elza but she shook her head, speaking for the first time since they had ran out of the Forklift Room. "She's out cold. Self-induced, I think, just like John said."

"Probably for the best, like Rita said." Kevin added, covering her and continually panning their surroundings while he remained at the ready.

"Yeah," Elza said. "Did you notice there's no key in the control panel?"

Kevin risked a quick look. "Shit! John was right!" His eyes darted back and forth, trying to spy out every nook and cranny where whatever had taken out John might be hiding. "And whatever it is, it's got to be damn fast, too. There couldn't have been more than a half-minute or so between Linda's scream and us coming in sight of this elevator."

Elza nodded. "Like the late stage lickers, only worse." She managed a grin. "Big, fast, and uuuuhhh-gly!"

"Well, do me a favor," Kevin said, as Elza now stood back up and naturally fell in beside him in her own combat-ready stance. He gave her a brief glimpse of his trademark smile. "If you ever graduate, and get a job with Umbrella, have them make some slow and weak monsters for a change, okay?"

"I'll think about it," Elza shot back, risking a quick grin in his direction.

"You'll think about it?" Kevin rejoined in mock horror. "Oh, well. I can but ask. Let's go hook back up with Rita and John, then come up with a plan to corner and kill this thing."

"You think it'll let us?" Elza asked. She was deadly serious.

"Well ..." Kevin answered, and he forced a laugh, "one can always hope."

* * * * *

With Elza providing cover, Kevin stowed his own weapon and picked up the unconscious Linda in a fireman's carry. After that, the two of them raced back to the loading dock annex as fast as they could manage. Along the way, they spotted John's shotgun – or rather, what was left of it. It was bent and twisted beyond use. Both Rita and John anxiously awaited them, as the pair finally arrived back from where they began. Kevin sat Linda down inside a nearby alcove formed from several stacked crates and one of the large industrial shelving units, in order that she be sheltered and out of harm's way – relatively speaking, of course. After that, the four adult humans who were still conscious held a council of war in the open area of the loading dock annex, always keeping half-an-eye open and turned towards the long and loaded floor of the warehouse stretching out before them. Everyone was fairly sure that whatever had attacked Linda and John was still inside; however, there were too many places within those loaded pallets, stacked crates, and rows of single and double-tier storage shelves for it to hide.

"There's only one thing we can do," Kevin was saying, as the discussion continued. "We're going to have to go in there and smoke it out."

"Ah doan think dat's a good idea," John said emphatically. "Ya saw whut it did ta my gun, an' ta me. An' I shot it three times, three times, up CLOSE, an' all it did wuz flinch!" He cast a sidelong stare at Rita, who was looking crossly at him, then back at Kevin. "An' I coulda sworn mah bullits jes' bounced rite off-n it."

Kevin stole a look at Rita, who almost imperceptibly shook her head, then over at Elza, who merely rolled her eyes. Still, John was a simple man, and he had yet to see John tell a deliberate lie. He might be exaggerating for emphasis, or perhaps something happened he didn't quite understand and his simple mind had translated it into something he could. Whatever had happened, the creature was obviously highly resistant to injury, if you just took John's statement at its most general face value. That was going to make things a lot harder for them. "All right," he said at last. "Whatever happened, one thing's clear – and on this I think all of us agree with you, John. This thing is one tough sunuvabitch. We've got to get to it first and hold the edge until we take it out. From what it sounds like, if it ever gets the jump on us, we're screwed."

"What's your plan?" Rita asked.

"Systematic search," Kevin said. "We're gonna have to flush it out." He looked at the others evenly. "That means we're going to have to spread out, and the odds are pretty damn good that our friend out there just might get the jump on one of us. If he does, though, the other three will be there to make up the difference." He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't like this idea any better than the rest of you, because my life is going to be on the line just the same. But if we don't get this thing first, then it's gonna get us. Any comments or suggestions?"

"I suggest a sliding Y-pattern search," Elza said. "That'll be the best, given how many people we have and the way the warehouse is laid out."

Kevin nodded. "Good idea." He thought for a moment, then added. "We'll put you and Rita on the side aisles, since you two have the autoguns. That way you'll at least have a better chance of surviving out there than me or John with our single-shot weapons, plus you might be able to drive it towards us with your sheer volley of fire. Once it's headed for us, we can concentrate our heavier but slower fire at point-blank range. And just maybe this time," he said, giving John his trademark wry grin, "our shots won't bounce off."

"Ise hope yer rite, boss," John said.

The sliding-Y pattern was a standard military search that had originally been developed by the tactical specialists of the United States Army, and subsequently adapted for civilian police and SWAT team use. It was used whenever a large interior space had to be searched that had long aisles running its length – like a warehouse, or a department store, or any other industrial or commercial location with a similar layout. In that sense it resembled the old-fashioned "beating the brush" search pattern commonly used by the infantry, but that was all. Forward elements would be deployed along each aisle, just as in "beating the bush," but would move out in a staggered pattern resembling the English letter "V" instead of either a straight line or the standard curved outward arc of the infantry. The outermost elements would go first, then the next inside group a few seconds later, and so on, with the centermost element or elements moving last. The "V" was transformed into a "Y" by an extra element to the rear. It remained fixed where the search started, scanning all overhead areas for any threats that the individual members of the forward part of the "Y" might not be able to see. The upper or "V" part of the "Y" was the only part that moved, whereas the base did not. This made the front part of the "Y" stretch out as its forward elements moved farther and farther away from the rear element at its base. That was why it was called the "sliding-Y pattern." Also, to assist in its function, the rear element at its base would usually assume the nearest high ground or somehow elevate themselves by whatever means were available, so as to better see over the heads of the others and better judge all possible or potential threats. In modern times remote-control drones made the base element's relocation by height no longer necessary; however, it was still done when no drones or anything comparable were available.

This was the search pattern that Elza had suggested and Kevin now employed. Both Rita and Elza were each deployed to the two side aisles of the warehouse, with Rita taking the parking lot side and Elza the street side. Kevin himself took the center aisle. John remained behind as the base, and he was put on a pallet that had been placed on the forks of the forklift and then raised up to its full height. That way, he could see over everyone's heads. His job was to sing out the name of the person closest to wherever he saw any kind of abnormal movement in whatever part of the warehouse where it happened. That way, everybody would know where to converge to get whatever it was. John also had two more additional duties: first, making sure that Linda remained protected, and second to also prevent their foe from making a quick break for the loading dock doors behind him. This was the best Kevin could come up with given the situation and resources available – and as it so happened, it turned out to be exactly the right thing he could have done.

Elza was the first to start. The reason for this was that Rita's side aisle started farther out than did Elza's, due to the intrusion in that side of the warehouse floor caused by the enclosed area of the former Forklift Room, the bathrooms, the back offices, and the caged secure area on top of all of them. Once she was in position, she stopped and whistled, and then Rita moved out. As soon as she caught sight of Elza across the way via a connected and open cross-aisle, she too whistled, and the two began walking slowly forward – autopistols in walking carries, looking all around into every dark corner and crevice within their immediate field of vision, and prepared to go after anything that came at them. Elza let out another whistle as soon as they had passed the next full cross-aisle, and then Kevin started moving up the center. His fully loaded Magnum was in hand, and he now carried his spare SiG Sauer - borrowed from the unconscious Linda - in the holster that had formerly held his Glock autopistol (the same that Rita was now using). As for his SPAS-12 shotgun, he had loaned it to John to replace his now-useless one, and John also had the late Roy Baker's SiG ready and loaded just in case. All of them were both loaded for bear and going after bear to make a play on the old country expression, and they could but hope that everything would go according to plan.

The search had proceeded about two-thirds of the way up the warehouse floor when it succeeded in flushing out the creature. Rita had almost passed her end of a side aisle when she thought she saw something out-of-place folded between two pallets that were stored under one of the double-stacked industrial shelving units on her side of the building. She stopped – and when she did, the thing immediately sprang out at her. It hit the edge of the shelving unit when it did, however, and John immediately yelled Rita's name when he saw it sway. By that time Rita was already running up the side aisle and firing in retreat. The end result was like spraying a dog with a high-pressure fire hose. The creature didn't seem to be hurt in any way, but it was stopped in its tracks nonetheless by both the sheer force and number of shells that were hitting it. A split second later everyone heard the roar of Kevin's Magnum, and a high-velocity 44-caliber Magnum shell slammed into the right of its back from the direction of the center aisle. That definitely made an impact on the creature. It whirled about in anger, its arms knocking stacked freight in all directions and sending the spilled and smashed contents of various boxes and crates flying. A third stream of fire now joined the other two despite the additional shrapnel flying through the air, for by now Elza had joined Kevin in the center aisle and she had opened fire with her own autopistol. The creature promptly lunged around and behind the nearest shelving unit via the side aisle with amazing speed, trying to get away from all of that gunfire, but it did not succeed. Rita was now running back down the side aisle, shooting as she came, and the creature darted through the freight on the bottom of the next shelving unit back in its efforts to escape, sending even more things flying everywhere. The shelving unit rocked, began to tip forward, and then crashed down, causing a domino effect with the other shelving units on that side of the building even as Rita chased the thing back towards the building's center. Both Kevin and Elza were waiting for it there, however, and the deadly triple stream of gunfire resumed again.

The end of the hunt came even as the creature plowed into the stacked crates and pallets full of freight on the street side of the warehouse, pulling then down and around behind it as it ran. It was either trying to hide or trying to hit its pursuers with all manner of flying debris, or perhaps both. Despite everything that the creature flung or threw at them, however, all three humans kept up the pressure. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the ruckus died down. The creature's movements slowed, and fewer and few things were flung at the three humans or in their general direction. Shortly thereafter, there was a great crash and several stacks of freight went flying ... and then all was silence again.

* * * * *

Somehow, despite the debris field caused by smashed or overturned freight in the creature's passing, the three humans managed to make their way to where it had fallen. They were now joined by John and Linda, who had come from the front part of the warehouse. Linda had regained consciousness even as the fight was raging. Once she got up, she had joined John over by the forklift. Wisely she had not said a word, remaining content to keep out of the way of whatever was going on. She guessed that Kevin had not taken her presence into account, and just remembering the sight of the creature as it had come up that elevator still unnerved her. John had dropped down from the raised pallet on the forklift once the fight was over, and after that had suggested that they join the others. Linda had inwardly steeled herself to what she knew she was going to find, resolving not to talk about it unless she had to do so, then nodded her head in agreement. Together they had walked over to and down the street side aisle of the warehouse to join the others. The wreck of the overturned freight that surrounded it was so bad that about the only way to approach the thing was to climb over the debris. The easiest approach by far was from the street side aisle. The creature had missed reaching it by only a dozen feet or less. That was the from where the humans now came. All five of them climbed over the lower part of the freight wreckage that now surrounded the creature, and then took a good long look at the thing once they had reached it.

The creature lay sprawled in the center of what almost looked like a mini-nest of wrecked crates, overturned wrapped pallets, and broken and scattered boxes and crate contents. It was lying on its back, with its head propped up against a broken pallet and both of its arms splayed out in different directions. Per John's earlier description, one of those arms was hideously enlarged and deformed, being at least twice as big as the other from inner shoulder blade all the way to the tip of its fingers. Both of those arms were still now, as was the creature itself, and it gave no sign of life of any kind. Its waist remained half twisted from its final fall, and it had wound up splaying its now-motionless legs into sort of a half-running and half-falling stance.

"Looks like it's dead," Rita said. "What do you think, Linda? Hey, Linda?"

Linda was looking strangely at the creature. It was a look that somehow manage to combine both familiarity and revulsion at the same time. It took her a moment to realize that Rita had just asked her a question. "What?"

"I said it looks like it's dead. Hey, hon, you gonna be all right? You look like you just seen a ghost."

"In a way," Linda stammered.

"Whaddya mean?"

Linda swallowed hard, then looked at them. "As you can see, this used to be human. In fact, it used to be one of the Lab staff." Everyone was watching Linda intently now, and she could feel all of their eyes on her. She took a breath, then continued. "He's ... someone with whom I used to work up in Chicago ... someone I knew very well. Please don't ask anything more – okay?" She turned her head and looked away. All of the others had caught a glimpse of deep sorrow on Linda's face before she turned away, so no one pressed the issue.

"Well, whoever it was, this isn't a normal T-virus infection," Elza said. She risked moving closer to the creature. It did not so much as twitch in response. She continued getting closer until she was standing almost directly beside its head and shoulders. She looked down at the misshapen head tilted on the broken pallet – a head that still retained recognizable human features. "Look at its body, guys. See those arms? How one is much bigger than the other? Every T-virus infected or mutant we've seen so far all have one thing in common, no matter how bad they look or how much worse they act. All of them pretty much have anatomical symmetry. This thing doesn't."

"Whut?" John said. "Dem words is too big fer me."

"It means they look about the same on one side of their body as they do the other." Rita said. "She's right. We as normal people look about the same on both sides. So do animals. Even the zombies and what T-virus monsters and mutants we've seen so far are like that. It's the natural order of things. The only times you don't have that are in the cases of mutation or disease – like the atomic bomb victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or people who suffer from diseases like the Elephant Man, and so on."

"Right," Elza said, kneeling down beside the thing as she continued to speak. "This thing's body is asymmetrical. That speaks of a freakish form of mutation that's outside the norm, even apparently for the T-virus. And look at this skin, too," she said, poking at it with the barrel of her autopistol. "Have you noticed how it's hardly bleeding, even after all the times we shot it?" She now picked up a broken piece of pallet from nearby and then poked at the body. The skin bowed in but did not break. She pressed in harder, and it bowed in even further, but still did not break or even bleed. Instead, the tip of the broken piece of wood disappeared inside the depression, and then ever so slowly but definitely the thing's skin began to move up the grain of the wood. "Weird. Like the skin of those stage six lickers, only tougher and far more flexible. See the way it tries to wrap around the end of this stick? John, I'm willing to bet all those shotgun pellets you pumped into this thing are still there, as are a lot of our bullets. The thing simply absorbed them until it couldn't absorb anymore, and then and only then did it start taking damage." She now pulled the piece of wood back out – and that took a bit of an effort, as if to add emphasis to her words.

"That begs the question," Kevin interjected. "What are we going to do when it revives? Not if, but when?" He looked down sourly at the monster. "This thing's one of the infected, after all. I mean, look at it. It's got on clothes – or rather, what's left of 'em. It used to be human at one point. And I'll bet it's like the Crimsons, in that it could revive at any time. Like right now. So what do we do?"

Everyone was now looking at Kevin, even Linda. As if in reply, Elza stood up, raised her autopistol and thumb-flicked its selector switch over to single shot mode. She looked down without compassion into the face of the monster at her feet. Before anyone could stop her, she had put the barrel of her pistol to the top of the thing's head and fired five rounds rapid, keeping her aim centered with every shot and keeping its head in line with her barrel even as it jerked from the recoil of each successive bullet. The creature's head and shoulders shook as each shell pulped its brain and then tore through its body, ricocheting back off of the hard concrete floor below and up into its lower back. Its back arched with each impact, and both blood and ... well ... something else shot out of its mouth and squirted from its nostrils. Only Kevin's face did not react as Elza carried out her act of execution. Both Rita and John grimaced. Linda couldn't take it and quickly turned away, hiding her face in both hands. The thing's head slumped down onto its chest after the last shell tore through what was left of its brain, oozing effluvia from every opening and orifice in its head. Elza briskly holstered her autopistol, then looked straight at Kevin with the coldest face he had ever seen her bear. "Problem solved," she stated, with a voice that could have even frosted ice itself. "Anything else?"

Kevin shook his head. "No." He took a deep breath, then addressed the others. "Okay. That's that. Let's go get Sherry, let's get that elevator key, and then let's get the hell outta here."

Everyone except Linda began working their way back to the side aisle. Linda remained motionless where she stood, her face still buried in her hands. Rita was the last to pass her by, and she stopped for a moment beside her. Only she could hear the Umbrella woman's muffled sobs. A sympathetic hand found its way to Linda's shoulder. "Hey there," she said gently. "You said you knew him back when he was human?"

"Yes," Linda choked.

"It's okay," Rita said softly. "We got some time. Take a minute or two, and then you can catch up. I'll tell the others. They'll understand."

Linda looked up at Rita. Her eyes were full of tears, and there were tear tracks on her face. "Thanks," she sobbed, reaching up and clasping Rita's hand.

Rita smiled sympathetically. "Don't mention it," she said. She gave Linda's shoulder a bit of a squeeze, then let go and headed out herself.

Linda was now alone with the thing that had come up from the Lab and out through the elevator. It took a bit for her to gather the strength of will needed for her to turn, and to look at that familiar yet horribly misshapen form stretched out before her. She saw something glinting off to one side, lying half-hidden under a piece of industrial flotsam, and quickly made her way to it. She reached down and picked it up. It was an Umbrella ID badge, very much like the one she carried herself. This one, however, had a red background that was trimmed in gold, and a black magnetic swipe stripe on its back showed that it also doubled as a combination pass key and ID card. Below the Umbrella logo and corporate symbol was the face of a handsome-looking man in youthful middle age, with close-cropped dishwater blond hair and matching mustache, who seemed to be grinning at the camera. The ident section beside the picture on the front of the badge had the following notation printed in it:

BIRKIN, WILLIAM  
Project Director  
Umbrella Factory Complex  
Special Research Division

"Oh, William," Linda sobbed, her tears now flowing freely again as her fingers gently played over the photo on the badge. It bore only a passing likeness to the now-bloodied face on the creature before her, looking even more gruesome than before with the top of its head blown off and the part that remained sunk forward onto its chest. "Oh, William ... why did you have to end like this? I warned you about the G-virus back when we were still working on it together up in Chicago. Remember? Oh, William ... dear, sweet William." Linda clasped the badge to her breasts as she continued to cry. "How I wanted to love you ... how I wished I could have ... but you were married, and so faithful to that despicable bitch of a wife of yours. Yet if things could have been different somehow ... if I had been given even a chance to show you ... to show you ... just how much ... I wanted to love you ...."

She could say no more. Sobbing, she put the ID badge in her pocket. After that, she reached down, took a corner of the ruined lab coat whose shreds still hung around the monster that had been Dr. William Birkin, and lovingly draped it over the thing's head and face. "I won't tell her," she promised the corpse. "I won't tell Sherry this is how you ended. She's a sweet girl, William. I just wish ... I wish she could have been ours." With that, still sobbing, Linda turned and left the monster behind, climbing over the debris back the way she came, as she returned to join the others in the old Forklift Room.

It was probably best for Linda that she had not stayed any longer to eulogize over her fallen former friend. For it was about twenty seconds after she had finished crawling back over the broken crates, scattered pallets, and their various and sundry contents in order to regain the side aisle and eventually rejoin her companions, when a change began to take place over the creature's entire body. Its skin took on an odd luster and began a half-rippling, half-shimmering motion – particularly in the areas surrounding any and all wounds. Time seemed to be flowing in reverse, as the blood and other fluids began running back up the creature's face and through its mouth and nose. The open wound at the top of the head bubbled hideously several times, and then what ejecta remained nearby began to flow back in. The horrible gaping wound on top of its head began to seal itself from the outside once all of its previously expelled contents had apparently returned -- and it both flowed back together and fused into a remarkable approximation of its former appearance, hair and all. The eyes remained just as glazed as before; however, they now seemed to glow with new life, and the massive chest began to slowly heave up and down as the creature resumed breathing once again.

By the time the survivors had reunited with Sherry in the Forklift Room and were about to begin their side quest for the elevator key, all of the creature's wounds had closed. By the time they retrieved that key, and were coming back out to the warehouse floor so they could get to the elevator and use it, the place where the creature had fallen was empty. Only the debris field itself remained to mark the spot where the humans had brought it down ... presumably for good, as they had so wrongly believed.

* * * * *

Sherry had literally sobbed with joy when she heard Elza's voice calling from beyond the locked bathroom door, telling her it was now all right to come out. She unlocked it from her side and literally flew through it into Elza's arms. "Oh, I was so worried!" she cried, hugging Elza close. Elza hugged her back and looked at both John and Rita, who grinned at her. Then Sherry turned in Elza's arms and held her own out to John. "And you too, Uncle John!" she said, reaching for him.

With a nod from Elza, John reached over and lifted her up high above his own head, holding her up there and grinning at her. "I gots ya now!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, Uncle John!" Sherry said, laughing.

John let Sherry down. He looked first at Kevin, and then at Linda. "An' I'm glad you're all rite too, boss, and I'm glad whatever it wuz didn't git ya, Miss Murdon. Whadda he— I means, whut wuz it, anyhow?"

Linda realized that the question was meant for her and mentally stumbled, trying to find the right words to say. Rita jumped in quickly. "It was nuthin' but a mean ol' monster. A really big one, to be sure, but it's dead now." Rita looked at Sherry, and her face took on the expression of a pleasant pout. "You mean to say you're not glad to see me, either, Miss Sherry?"

"Oh, Miss Rita! I'm sorry!" Sherry said, promptly running to her and hugging her. Rita put her arms around her and hugged her back, then looked over her head to Linda, to whom Kevin had just finished returning his spare pistol. The former Umbrella employee pocked the gun and silently mouthed the word "Thanks," and Rita nodded in reply. "I wouldn't worry about that thing anymore, Sherry," Rita continued, "but we got one more thing to do before we can go."

"What's that?"

"We gotta get the key for the control console for that elevator. Apparently it reset whenever that monster rode up from below. The elevator's gone back down now, so we gotta work the console to get it back up. To do that, though, we're going to need the key."

"It'll be in one of the back offices, remember?" Sherry reminded them.

"But we don't know which one," Kevin said. "That means we're going to have to search them both, and maybe that upstairs area too, before we're done. Tell you what. Anyone who needs to rest and freshen up can do so in here, while the rest of you can come with me to find that key. Any volunteers?"

"S'cuse me, boss," John said, grinning sheepishly. "I gots ta go water da flowers agin."

"That's one down," Kevin said, smiling. "Go. Anyone else?"

"Well ..." Rita said, looking down. "I am a bit hungry, and I've still got some change, too." She now looked up at Kevin. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No," Kevin said. "I shouldn't be long, anyway." He suddenly shot her his trademark wry smile. "Save half-a-candy bar for me?"

Both of Rita's eyebrows arched up. "Why, you scamp!" she exclaimed in mock exasperation. Her features settled back down quickly into a warm smile. "Tell you what. I'll buy two, and we can share the second down in the Lab." She then looked at the others. "I think I've got enough change for one more, if anyone else is hungry."

Linda looked around nervously, then spoke. "I'm hungry."

"Then it's settled," Rita said. "You're with us."

"And you're staying in here with them, where it's safe," Elza added, pointing at Sherry.

"But I thought Miss Rita said that monster was dead," Sherry pouted.

"She did," Elza replied, "but there might be other monsters out there. We haven't had time to search those other offices, you know – and there's no telling what else might be hiding at the back or upstairs of the warehouse, neither of which we've yet explored."

"Oh," Sherry said, looking disappointed. She then took Elza's hand. "You take care, Miss Elza, okay?"

"I will," Elza said, tousling Sherry's hair. The little girl smiled, then detached herself to go with the other women to the vending machines. John was already in the men's room, presumably relieving himself. Elza looked at Kevin, and for the first time in their shared Outbreak experience together actually gave him a heartfelt look. "Well, Kevin? Looks like you're going to get that date with me after all." She then grinned slyly. "But don't you go getting any ideas, either."

"Who, me?" Kevin said, grinning back. "Besides, Rita would have me drawn and quartered if I even tried."

"You're damn right," Rita added, from over at the vending machines.

"Well, well!" Elza exclaimed softly. "Looks like you two have come a long way since we first met!"

"The same could be said for you ... Elza." Kevin said, smiling back. He held out his left arm, while drawing his Magnum and holding it up with the other. "Anyway ... shall we get this date started?"

Elza placed her arm in his and smiled back. "We shall indeed," she said, holding up her autopistol with the other as well.

"And don't you kids do anything I wouldn't do, either," Rita quipped as she returned from the vending machines, three candy bars in hand – but there was laughter in her voice even as she said it.

Together Kevin and Elza looked back at her in a classic double-take. "Who, us?" they said at the same time, then laughed as they went out the door.

* * * * *

They had heard the sounds coming from the warehouse floor about the time they rounded the turn and were near the forklift. The echoes were so bad that it was hard to tell from exactly where they came. Both Kevin and Elza stood still for a few moments, guns drawn and raised ... and then it happened. A movement caught their attention, and they turned to see a small box full of packed spray lubricant begin to slide down the slanted storage shelf on which it now sat, the shelving unit itself having been dominoed in the earlier fight with the creature. It picked up speed as it slid until there was no more shelf for sliding. It then fell straight down and hit the floor with a loud crash and banging of cans. One of the cans ruptured and shot off across the warehouse floor in a mad spiral, spraying white lubricant everywhere and looking for all the world like a wounded bottle rocket on the last leg of its final flight. It flew all the way across the warehouse and ricocheted off the wall, then stuck in the grating for the second story storage area at the far end of the warehouse. There it remained, continuing to gush out lubricant through the hole torn in its side until no aerosol was left to drive it.

Kevin grunted. "Shit's probably going to be falling and dropping all night," he muttered.

Elza nodded. "Let's hope no more of those aerosol cans rupture like that. I'd sure hate to be hit by one."

Searching the back offices proved to be more difficult than had been anticipated, but not terribly so. There had been two regular zombies trapped in the first office and a Crimson with three bodies in the second. The usual pattern had been followed in both cases. The first two zombies had been attacking each other for four days and were both badly wounded and physically weak. The Crimson Zombie had been the far more difficult foe to deal with, for it had been living off of the meat from its kills and was in prime condition. Nevertheless, both Kevin and Elza managed to dispatch it ... and that was when, after searching the second office, they found out that it only contained a key for the upstairs secured storage area.

"You know, I'm getting awfully tired of searches and side quests," Kevin muttered.

"You too?" Elza said with a smile.

Kevin grinned back at her. "Yeah, me too. I mean, what the hell? It's like being in one of your videogames, or Dungeons and Dragons or something. I don't know. All I know is I'm sick of it."

"Warrior needs Rita, badly," Elza snickered, speaking sotto voce. "Warrior is about to die."

Kevin glared at her for a moment, then managed a grin. "You're a funny girl, Elza."

"So all my boyfriends tell me," she said, smiling cooly at him.

"As in more than one?" Kevin said, raising an eyebrow.

"As in wouldn't you like to know?" Elza said, giving him a wicked grin in reply.

The upstairs secured storage area turned out to be no lark in the park, either. Somehow a fourth-stage licker had gotten trapped inside – or perhaps whoever had been trapped in there by the Outbreak had somehow managed to have been transformed that far by the T-virus. Given the fact that a shelving unit split the center of the larger end of this caged-in area, they had been forced to do a lap or two trying to corner and kill the thing before it got either one of them. They finally did just that, however, and in two shakes of a lamb's tail Elza had the elevator key in her hand. Just as she held it up, though, there was a loud crash from the ruined warehouse floor, and both Kevin and Elza looked at each other. They had been hearing similar crashes ever since witnessing what caused the first one, although none had been quite this loud, and they were by now getting fairly tired of them.

"Are you ready to leave this party?" Kevin said, thumbing towards the secured storage area door.

"Last one to the Forklift Room is a rotten egg," Elza said, trotting out in front of him.

* * * * *

All of them were now assembled in front of the large freight elevator shaft at the far end of the warehouse. Elza was positioned almost directly in front of the door, with Sherry and then John to her left and the others to her right. They were grouped around the control console for the elevator – with Rita closest to Elza, Kevin at the console, and Linda behind and to the right of him. Elza had given the elevator key to Kevin, as he was the group's leader, so it was he who now inserted it into the panel and turned it. They heard a distant motor kick on and saw cables moving through the latticework of the elevator shaft. Kevin looked at the others and grinned. "Not much longer now," he said.

Perhaps it was the fact that they had been through so much and were now so close to their goal. Perhaps it was the fact that they had dealt with every known threat and dispatched them all – or so it seemed. Perhaps it was the simple fact that everyone was tired, and still suffering from the aftereffects of various and sundry wounds. Whatever it was, or whatever it might have been did not matter. The fact remained that all of them were off their guard, and were not expecting anything else to happen to them. That is why they were totally unprepared for what happened next. None of them saw the massive shadow suddenly loom up from the tall ruins of several formerly wrapped but now half-spilled pallets about halfway back on the street side of the warehouse floor. It held in the hand of its overmuscled right arm a piece of heavy cast iron pipe that was about four feet long and about four inches in diameter. It was the creature they thought they had killed, but which was now fully revived. It had murder on its mind, and its eyes were now fixed on what had been the last sight it had seen before its life had been taken away from it, however briefly. It had found the woman in the red pants who had delivered that final coup de grace, and it was now her turn to endure what she had made it endure. It raised back the pipe with its overmuscled arm, and then threw it straight at the woman with all of its might.

It was Rita who caught the shadow's motion out the corner of her eye. Her head snapped around, and she saw the danger. "WATCH OUT!!!" she screamed – but it was too late.

Had that pipe been aimed only a foot-and-a-half to the left, it would have instantly decapitated Sherry. Had it been aimed two feet to the right, it would have not only skewered Rita but pinned her solidly to the elevator control console behind her as well. Yet it had not been aimed at either Sherry or Rita, but at Elza. The end of the pipe hit square on her back on the lower half of her armor vest with all the force of a tractor-trailer rig slamming into a brick wall. Her armor vest cracked and split in two as Elza was hurled forward by the force of that blow, legs stumbling rapidly under her and arms flailing out, unable to stop herself. Like a rocket sled on a rail she flew straight towards the leftside edge of the elevator door, made from solid steel, and Elza knew in that brief instant before she hit it that she couldn't get out of its way. Yet true to her nature, she tried. She twisted as hard and as fast as she could, trying to turn her body sideways so she would perhaps carrom off of the frame and simply roll across the leftside latticework and onto the floor, with serious injuries no doubt but with the great force of that terrible blow largely sluffed off in the process. She tried ... but she failed. Elza's body was slammed into that unyielding steel without any margin for escape, as that thrown pipe continued to drive her forward, and everyone saw and heard with horror as first her body hit, and then her head whiplashed forward into the beam. They saw her entire body shake and then stiffen as the pipe finally ricocheted away, and they also heard the simultaneous snaps and cracks that told of multiple broken bones. Elza hung there for a moment, as if transfixed to the spot – and then she fell. She made no sound, no cry, not even a whimper – she just fell, collapsing into a jumbled heap at the foot of that unbreakable beam of steel. There was a large splatter of blood where her head had hit the beam, and there was also a blood trail on the beam following her body to the floor. And even as she lay there, silent and unmoving, a blood pool began to form ever so slowly beneath her stilled form.

"MISS ELZA!!!" Sherry cried.

Just then something flew through the air and landed directly behind Sherry, who whirled about to see – and then froze, transfixed in horror at what she now saw. It was the creature that the others had fought earlier, now apparently fully restored to life with not even a scratch to show for its earlier fight, and with its face a mask of hideous rage. It raised its massive arm up as if to smash the little girl away into the far wall – and then it stopped, too. It looked strangely at the quaking little form beneath it, turning its head from side to side as if it were studying her. It looked almost as if it was trying to say something, but no sound came from the mouth, which seemed to be trying to shape a single, drawn-out word.

Sherry screamed – her voice a pure wail of sheer terror.

Whatever the creature might have been trying to say will never be known, for at that moment all of the humans still standing began shooting at it almost in unison. There was a loud roar from its right as John opened up with the SPAS-12, and a fearsome blast from its left as Kevin made his presence known with his Magnum. A rapid staccato from just in front of Kevin and the occasional bark from behind him signified the presence of both Rita and Linda, as they too added the weight of their firepower to that of the others. The creature staggered and fell back, stumbling to its right – and with that, the center aisle of the warehouse was temporarily clear. Sherry looked back at Kevin, who now fiercely shouted a single word at her.

"RUN!!!"

Sherry ran.

She never could remember how she got out of the warehouse. She never could remember how she got past the lickers, or the zombies, or all of the other monsters and mutants she encountered along the way, or how she made her way through the industrial district to the riverfront, or even how she got back across the river. She couldn't remember crying and sobbing non-stop for a good third of that forgotten journey, saying Elza's name over and over again and with that horrible sight constantly replaying in her terrified mind. Her simple child's mind had been forced to behold more horror in those few terrible seconds that it could possibly deal with, as an adult she loved dearly was struck down violently right before her eyes by a monster straight out of a nightmare, and with the others prepared to sell their own lives so she could escape. It was just too much. For that reason, part of Sherry Birkin's mind simply shut off – and she lost all memory of the past twenty-four hours.

That was the reason why Sherry eventually found herself wandering alone once again in downtown Raccoon City by late afternoon, very tired and sore, and still looking for the RPD station where her mother had told her to go. She could not remember how she got there, nor did she realize that her memory of the past twenty-four hours was missing. Yet there was something in her subconscious mind that must have remembered, for this time her feet did not lead her to the older part of downtown, and the smoking ruins of the old RPD where the Umbrella paramilitaries were still present in force. They led her instead to Emmerdale Street ... and soon enough, the tall clock tower of the new RPD station was within sight of one very tired little girl.

* * * * *

The second fight with the creature in the warehouse was even more fearsome than the first. That time the humans had been the hunter, and the creature had been a prey surprised and stalked at will, with the humans in full control of the situation. This time their positions had reversed. It was the creature who was now the hunter and the humans the prey – and nothing could stop it this time around. Nothing at all.

Kevin had immediately ordered Rita and Linda back to tend to the fallen Elza, while he and John tried to draw the creature away from them. The thing was only too glad to oblige, as it toyed with them in their vain efforts to run it to ground. More than once one or both of them were sent flying into broken crates, smashed pallets, overturned shelves, and scattered piles of spilled freight and other industrial debris. They were taking a beating and the creature seemed to be delighting in it – that is, until Kevin landed close enough to the forklift to be inspired to a sudden brainstorm. The next thing that the creature saw was the forklift rapidly approaching at its top speed, with the forks halfway up and Kevin at the controls. His intent was to spear it with one of the forks; however, the thing managed to turn at the last minute and avoid that particular fate. That did not stop it from being caught between the forks, though, and being pushed a good ways down the center aisle. At that point Kevin changed tactics and turned the forklift hard left, driving it into one of the still-standing double-stacked storage shelves. The entire unit and its stacked freight shook as both creature and forklift were slammed into it, and Kevin kept the forklift driving forward as he tried desperately to pin the creature against the shelving unit. It might have worked too, despite the creature fiercely batting at Kevin - attacks he somehow dodged and whose frequent impacts turned the forklift's protective roll bars into a misshapen pretzel - had not the creature itself changed tactics. It suddenly stopped trying to hit Kevin and then reached down, grabbing a fork in each hand, then braced its legs and began to lift upward. Kevin saw what was coming and bailed off of the forklift as fast as he could. Rita, on the other hand, did not.

Rita had found Elza critically injured but still alive, despite a massive and rather obvious loss of blood. The source for all the blood was Elza's left arm. It was broken in at least two places and with a rather visible bone protruding from one. It was this break, located on the inside of Elza's upper arm, from where all the blood was coming – and Elza was going to bleed to death unless something was done about it at once. Rita immediately tore off her uniform tie to use as a tourniquet, and then directed Linda to dress Elza's other wounds while she concentrated on the most critical one. That was the situation by the freight elevator, until Rita saw Kevin charge the creature with the forklift. Right then and there Rita had decided that Kevin needed her help more than Elza. Ordering Linda to take over with the tourniquet, Rita had grabbed her Glock and sprang up despite Linda's protestations. She had just started to run towards Kevin when the creature succeeded in lifting up and overturning the forklift, flinging it backwards. The shelving unit where it was partially impaled promptly toppled and stacked freight flew everywhere. Both Rita and Linda were hit by various forms of flying debris, and Rita was hit so hard by a box flying off of one of its lower shelves that she was thrown back unconscious beside a half-dazed Linda – who still managed to somehow keep a tight grip on Elza's tourniquet. Kevin could not come to the aid of either Rita or Linda because the now-freed creature was going after him, and it was all he could do to stay ahead of it. A bloodied John popped up out of nowhere and opened fire, but one massive blow from the creature's overmuscled arm sent the man flying across the warehouse. It was Kevin's turn next ... and when the dust finally began to settle, only the creature was left standing.

Years later, John Kendo would have this to say about that last battle inside the warehouse.

Wurst fight ah waz ever in in mah life. It wuz lak bein' locked in a closet wid a lion. A reallah pissed-off lion, too! Ah guess it wuz mad at Miss Elza for tryin' ta kill it, so it took her out furst. It wuz a miracle she lived through dat, ya know? But it wudn't dun. No siree, not by half. It had us for seconds, and fer dessert ta boot. We wuz lucky we lived, too. Reel lucky. Gawd, but I doan ever wanna be in any fight ever lak that agin.

Kevin Ryman was more blunt.

We got our asses kicked. Good and hard, too. There just wasn't any stopping it no matter what we did, once the tables turned and it was our turn on the wheel of pain. The only reason we're still alive today was it simply quit trying to kill us and left. I didn't find out why until later, but looking back, I don't think knowing that would have made any difference.

* * * * *

The inside of the main warehouse in the warehouse district of the Umbrella Factory Complex now resembled the proverbial war zone. It looked like a good-sized bomb had gone off in there, with the only thing missing being the crater. Storage shelves were overthrown or dominoed, smashed crates and busted pallets stuck up through the debris, and what had once been a nicely ordered arrangement of stored freight was mixed up, broken open, smashed, and thrown everywhere. The overturned forklift, with its battered roll cage and its twisted front forks, with sparks coming from the broken wiring of its large storage battery, only served to complete the picture. The only peaceful part of that terrible image were the stars that shone through the new hole in the roof, torn through it by the creature after it took one more look around, as if searching for something that was no longer there, then flung itself up to the nearest bracing beam for the roof and ripped open its own exit.

Kevin Ryman slowly picked himself up from where he had fallen, buried deep in a pile of spilled goods, splintered wood, and smashed plastic. His body ached all over, and he had a nasty cut on his right forearm. His right temple throbbed unmercifully, too. He reached up a hand to touch it and felt something moist and sticky. Blood was on his hand when he pulled it back down – his own blood, although it was congealing. At least he didn't have a hole in his head, he thought – well, another one. He heard a groan not far away, and with an effort John Kendo lifted himself from another pile of broken goods, warped plastic, and flattened boxes. He was in just as bad a shape as Kevin, holding his left shoulder with his right hand, with various bloodstains across his jeans and dirty t-shirt, bleeding from his nose and mouth and with a large gash running across his forehead just below his hairline. John looked over at Kevin and tried to smile. "Anahwun gets da liesinse numbah of dat truck?" he said.

Kevin looked down and saw the handle of his Magnum sticking out from under a scattered pile of goods. He stumbled over and picked it up. As he did so, he heard Linda call. "Kevin!" He looked up towards the freight elevator. Elza remained where she lay, although it was apparent that some of her wounds had been treated and roughly bandaged. Linda was kneeling nearby, still holding pressure on Elza's tourniquet – but she was also cradling the head of an unconscious Rita in her lap. A rough bandage had been quickly wrapped around Rita's head, and there was blood on one side. At least she was breathing, and that was a good sign. Always a good sign.

Kevin started to head for the freight elevator, but stopped as an unpleasant thought crossed his mind. Instead, he turned back to John. "Shotgun?" he called hoarsely.

"Heah," John said, holding up the SPAS-12. It was dirty, but it appeared to be in one piece and still usable.

Kevin pointed to the hole in the roof. "Cover that," he said. "No telling when those lickers will find it."

"Rite," John said, as he began to move to a better position in order to do just that.

Kevin wound his way as best he could through the debris now littering the central aisle of the warehouse until he reached the freight elevator. By the time he got there Rita was already stirring. Linda looked up at him. "She was about to try to come to your aid when she got hit by something," she explained. "Knocked her out cold. I think it was from one of those shelves falling over, and stuff flying off of it and all. I got hit too, but I took all my damage on my back and backside. I was covering her and Elza." She grimaced. "I'll be fine, though, I think. Where's Sherry?"

Kevin shook his head. "Last I saw of her, she was running down that center aisle towards the other end of the building." He turned, and then called out as loud as he could manage. "Sherry?! SHERRY?!!"

"She's probably long gone," Linda said. "Either that, or ..." and she nodded towards the destruction on the warehouse floor before them.

Just then Rita moaned, and her eyes opened. She smiled weakly. "Why does the first thing I get to see is your ugly mug?" she mumbled.

"Luck of the draw," Kevin said. He helped Rita to sit up, while Linda went back to tending Elza. "Easy does it."

"Sherry!" Rita suddenly said, sitting straight up. "I saw her running to the door! I—"

"I'll go look for her," Kevin said. He looked around, saw and grabbed the Glock that Rita had dropped, then spotted the fallen Elza's autopistol. He got back to his feet, ran over to it, and scooped it up, too. He quickly checked both of them, and then looked back at the two women. "How's Elza?"

"She's alive," Rita said, "but just barely. Must be that iron will of hers. She almost bled to death before we got to her, though. Kevin – we gotta get her down to that Lab, ASAP, or she's had it."

Linda nodded in agreement. "There's a fully stocked medical facility down there. Everything we need – but if we don't get Miss Walker down there soon, she's going to die. She lost an awful lot of blood, and she's badly injured to boot."

"I can see that," Kevin snapped. "Just have her ready to move when I get back." He focused on Rita. "Gimme your spare clip, and give me Elza's spares from her armor vest if you can." A few seconds later, with the spare autopistol clips sticking out of every available pocket, Kevin turned and began making his way back down the debris-strewn center aisle as fast the obstructions would let him.

It was almost three minutes later when the first licker tried to poke its head through the hole in the roof. John promptly blew it away with the SPAS-12, but more soon followed. By that time Kevin had made his way to the loading dock annex and given it a quick once-over, then had searched the Forklift Room and the bathrooms. He was in the process of rushing through the back offices when he heard the first shotgun blast. Instantly he was out of there and racing to John's position. He arrived not a moment too soon, for John had just fired off his last shell. Kevin took over, sweeping the hole in the ceiling with both autopistols while John reloaded.

"Go to the elevator and help the girls get Elza inside," Kevin ordered.

"But whut about Sherry?" John begged.

"I can't find her!" Kevin snapped. "She's either not here or she's crushed somewhere under all that around us!"

"Ise not leavin' Sherry!" John wailed.

"You think I want to?!" Kevin yelled. "We gotta go, John! Now! Our time's run out!!"

John looked at Kevin, who was now directing steady bursts of fire up at the ceiling. After a moment, he hung his head. "Thanks fer tryin', boss."

"No sweat," Kevin said, not even looking in his direction. "Now get your fat ass in gear and GO!"

John took off toward the elevator, while Kevin remained behind, covering his escape. More and more of the lickers were coming now. It was all too much like that scene in the classic sci-fi horror movie Aliens, where the surviving Colonial Marines were forced into a fighting retreat through the remains of space colony LV-426, being pressed ever closer and closer by hundreds of bloodthirsty xenomorphs. Kevin remembered watching that movie, several times as a matter of fact – except that this was no movie. It was real, it was happening now, he was in the same spot as those Marines, and like them his ammo was beginning to run low. He began to retreat as fast as he could towards the elevator shaft, working his way across the debris-littered aisle while still shooting at the lickers ... but the farther and farther he got away from the hole in the ceiling, the less and less accurate his directed fire became ... and more and more of the lickers got in.

John covered the last part of the distance to the freight elevator almost at a dead run. "Boss says we gotta go!" he panted. "Th' lickers is gettin' trew!"

"Help us get Elza into the elevator!" Rita barked. When he stuck out his arms and bent down to pick her up, she slapped his hands hard. "Not that way, stupid! Her back may be broken!"

"Awwww, geez ..." John said, looking down at the blood-and-bandage covered body lying at his feet, still twisted into the position where it had collapsed. Both of the women were already moving into place, Rita at Elza's head and Linda at her feet. Rita had earlier helped Linda tie off the tourniquet so it would stay tight, leaving them both free to help move the critically wounded and unconscious young woman once the time came.

"Three man carry!" Rita snapped. "I'll take the head and neck! John, you take the middle! Linda, the legs! All we're gonna do is scoot her inside the elevator! Don't turn her, don't twist her, and try to keep her exactly like this as much as you can! And for God's sake, don't stand up! Got it?! Just like that! All right! Everyone! One ... two ... three!"

As one the three of them moved Elza's body into the freight elevator. It might have moved a half-inch at most out of position, but that was all. Rita was praying that even that little bit had not done any more damage than poor Elza's body had already suffered. She now looked at Linda. "Go tell Kevin to get the hell in here!," she ordered. "This bus is pullin' out!!"

By now a steady swarm of lickers was coming through the hole in the ceiling. They looked like a flock of locusts moving across a doomed cornfield as they spread across the ceiling, always moving in the direction of the freight elevator. By now Kevin was concentrating solely on beating the lead lickers down and thus slowing the horde's progress, as he continued to retreat towards the freight elevator. He was already halfway there by the time Linda darted out.

"Kevin!" Linda called. "Hurry!!"

Once Kevin heard Linda's call, he quit shooting. Instead, he turned and sprinted for the freight elevator. Linda was already inside, holding the door open from the inner control panel. The angry horde behind him suddenly swelled into a dark red storm, as hundreds of lickers surged forward, trying to beat the human to his goal. He had enough of a lead on them, though, and he made it just in time. He literally dived through the door as Linda released the door hold button, and both the inner and outer doors slid shut right behind him. They heard lickers scampering down the open lattice of the outside of the elevator shaft and slamming into the outer doors, raking them with their long and deadly claws, but by that time the elevator was already heading down.

They had only been descending for about five seconds when they heard a loud whump! as something landed on the roof of the elevator car. A second later there was a second whump! Immediately after that there was the sound of tearing metal, and the long and poisonous claw of a stage six licker pierced the car's roof downward. Fortunately everyone had already ducked or squatted down at the sound of the first impact, so no one was hit. Kevin, who had been busy reloading his Magnum, immediately flipped the cylinder back into place and fired upward. There was a loud shriek and a squeal, but the claw-piercing was not repeated. At the same time, Linda flipped open a nearby side access panel – revealing a numeric keypad, a card reader, and a small display screen. She keyed in a code and the display came up, prompting for authorization confirmation. She then took a gold-edged Umbrella ID card out of one of her pockets and ran it through the reader. The screen promptly flashed green with the following message:

BIRKIN, WILLIAM  
AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED  
INTRUDER PROTOCOL ONE  
NOW IN EFFECT

"What's that?!" Rita asked, looking up from tending Elza to both Linda and the screen.

Linda looked at everyone. "Get to the center of the elevator!" she said urgently. "Don't anyone touch the walls! Hurry!!"

Everyone did as Linda said. A few seconds later, the lights dimmed and there was a loud sound of electricity arcing at extremely high voltage. They could see blue flashes through the holes that had been punched in the car's roof, and heard the death wails of the two lickers above as they were literally burned to pieces. A few seconds later the arcing sound cut out, and they heard the sound of multiple soft plops! hitting the roof.

"That was Intruder Protocol One," Linda said. She now looked at Kevin. "This is why I told you not to go down those induction shafts earlier. And if that wouldn't have stopped those lickers, and any others that might have followed them down, then the pop-out razor wire meshes we're about to pass almost certainly would have."

"Dayum," John said. "Umbrellah shore doan skimp on securitah."

"No, it doesn't," Linda said, nodding. She looked evenly at Kevin. "You realize I just may have let Umbrella know where we are."

Kevin looked back at her, and then managed to crack a faint grin. "Yeah, but I think you really want to save Elza's life – so that's why you took the risk. Anyway you saved us, so thanks on my part."

"You're welcome," Linda said. She now knelt beside Rita, who was still tending the fallen Elza. Linda looked over at her, then placed a hand on one of Rita's shoulders. "We'll be there soon," she said, trying to reassure the worried-looking woman.

"I just hope Elza makes it all the way," Rita said, and the concern on both her face and in her voice was evident to all. She took up the hand of the uninjured right arm of the body before her, and held it firmly within one of her own. "C'mon, Elza," she pleaded, her voice cracking as she spoke. "You can do it. Don't you die on me. Don't you die on us. We've been through too much together, and we're so close to getting you some proper aid. So don't die, Elza. Please .... don't die."

The elevator continued its downward descent toward the Underground Lab far below.

END PART THREE

\-------------------------

INTERLUDE 3

The sun was already halfway through its downward arc in the sky when a lone little girl appeared on Emmerdale Street in downtown Raccoon City. She walked steadily onward, pausing only to slink into the shadows if a zombie staggered across her path, then resolutely moving onward. She had either dodged or gone through many dangers to get where she was now, but she was almost there. She couldn't remember exactly how she had gotten there, but this was where her mother had told her to go – and now she was here.

It took a long time for someone to answer her repeated pounding on the front door of the new RPD station. She had been prepared to bolt at the first sign of a zombie answering the door. Instead, it was opened by a tall but portly man wearing brown trousers and a brown vest, with a gun holster under one arm and strapped across his chest like the kind a detective or undercover policeman normally wore under his coat. He bore a faint likeness to the late Chief Clemons in that he had a heavyset face with a moustache, but there the likeness ended. Chief Clemons had started to bald and had both full grey temples and grey streaking his moustache, while this man still had a full head of brown hair and his moustache was solid brown. The only grey in his hair were his sideburns. He looked both frightened and crazed at the same time, but his face instantly melted into a mask of almost parental concern once he saw Sherry. Only his eyes retained the look of a man who was not quite all there.

"Why, hello!" the man said in a pleasant enough voice. "You must be little Sherry Birkin. Your mother called almost five days ago now to tell us you were coming to stay with us. Where have you been all this time?"

"I ... I've been lost, I think," Sherry said, "and I've been wandering around, trying to find my way here." She suddenly frowned. "Five days? I must have lost count somehow."

"Did you have trouble with the zombies?"

"Lots," Sherry admitted. "My guards got killed, and I had to do a lot of hiding. But I'm here now, and I guess that's what matters. Where are my mom and dad?"

The man smiled. "I'll be getting in touch with them as soon as I can, so they'll know you finally made it." There was something weird about his smile, but Sherry couldn't quite place it. "In the meantime, we've got the place all to ourselves. Everyone else is dead. The Outbreak, you know. You can run around all you want, if that's what you'd like to do."

"I just want to take a nap, Mister ...?"

"Irons. Brian Irons is my name, but you can call me Chief Irons. I'm the Chief of the Raccoon Police. Isn't that strange? I'm the chief, but there's no police. Not anymore." He laughed a strange, high-pitched laugh, then looked at Sherry again. That smile of his was beginning to look a bit ghoulish. "I've got a room just off of my office on the third floor," he said, "where you can sleep and not be disturbed. You'll have to pass through the room where I have all of my stuffed animals, though. I hope that doesn't scare you. I stuff animals as a hobby. Did you know that?"

"That sounds good, sir," Sherry said quickly. Something was trying to click in her mind, something she thought had once heard others say about this man, but she couldn't remember who it was, much less make the connection. She also didn't like the way Chief Irons was talking, and wanted to get away from him as fast as possible. "I'd like to go to sleep now, if I may."

"Why, certainly," Chief Irons said, "but we'll have to move quickly though my office. I've got a lady friend in there, you know. Mustn't be disturbed, and all that." He smiled broadly again, still with that strange light in his eyes, and held out an inviting hand. "Won't you come in?"

Sherry Birkin followed Chief Brian Irons into the new RPD station, and then the door closed behind them.

\-------------------------

... to be continued ...


End file.
